Colin Powell’s affirmative action stance also defined him as a Black Republican.
“As DuBois put it in an 1897 article and later in his classic 1903 book “The Souls of Black Folk,” this “peculiar sensation” is unique to African Americans: “One feels his two-ness — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”
Yet, Williams said, there is a danger to that narrative. “Colin Powell’s story was exceptional, but he was no avatar of a colorblind, post-racial America.” “His reasoned approach to politics — his willingness to grapple with and ‘accept hard realities’ as he states in his bio,— led to this ideological independence. He noted that he himself benefited from affirmative action. There was a historical imbalance in access and opportunity and it was fair, to Powell’s mind, that those imbalances be corrected. His experience, as a Black man, equipped him with the ability to assess the situation expertly and honestly. He lived those hard realities.
As high-profile Black Republicans, James and Powell had many conversations. But when asked if they ever discussed affirmative action, she said, “we did not.”
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