The last remaining founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, former U.S. Congressman Charles Rangel passed away Monday, May 26, 2025. Throughout his career, Congressman Rangel fought tirelessly for affordable housing, urban revitalization, fair tax policies, and equal opportunities for all Americans.
The Harlem native was the lone surviving member of the legendary 'Gang of Four,' a group of successful politicians from Harlem, New York. Rangel took his reputation as the “Lion of Lenox Avenue” to the House of Representatives in 1971. The pinnacle of his tenure in Congress was in 2007 when he became the first African American chairman of the powerful U.S. House or Representatives Ways and Means Committee.
In a 2018 interview with The HistoryMakers, Rangel recounted his early years on the streets of Harlem. “I came up from nothing; I was a fatherless high school dropout with a gift of living by my wits and hiding my inadequacies behind bravado.” At the age of 22, he said, “I was pushing a hand truck in the gutters of New York’s garment district for a living…Yet somehow, by age 30, I had acquired three degrees in six years, and was a newly minted lawyer admitted to the New York Bar."
Surviving the horrors of the Korean War, he made every day of his life count. Upon discharge from the military, Rangel enrolled at New York University, earned his bachelor’s degree in 1957, and three years later, a law degree from St. John’s University Law School.
Rangel recounted marching with Dr. Martin Luther King during the 54-mile trek from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965.
“I cursed every step of those fifty-four miles, ...People in every house we passed along the way called us everything under the sun, and threw things at us. Every store played ‘Bye, Bye Blackbird’ from loudspeakers.”
One man, he recalled, asked him if he wanted a shower since they were sleeping in tents scattered around the fields. “We met and climbed into this broken down car on a dirt road. As [our] overcrowded car took off in the darkness, we saw that we were being followed. Damn, were we scared. We sped up, turned around, and gave up all thoughts of showering –– all we wanted to do was get back to our group.”
In 1961, Attorney General Robert Kennedy appointed Rangel assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
During his tenure in Congress, Rangel pushed for normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba and later for Haitian refugees. He also led the economic recovery after a terrible recession in 2008, and played a key role in the landmark health care bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. “We have a moral obligation in terms of the number of people who have lost their homes, gone into bankruptcy as a result of the costs of providing health care.”
Sources: Afro.com; Blackfacts.com; Rangelprogram.org
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