Rangel, Charles Bernard

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Rangel, Charles Bernard

June 11, 1930

Politician Charles Rangel was born and raised in Harlem. His parents separated when he was a small child, and he lived with his mother and grandfather. He dropped out of high school in his junior year and worked at odd jobs until 1948, when he enlisted in the army. He was deployed to South Korea, where he was stationed for four years and served in the Korean War, earning a Bronze Star Medal of Valor and a Purple Heart.

After the war Rangel returned to high school in New York and received his diploma in 1953. He then entered the New York University School of Commerce, earning a B.S. in 1957. He went on to St. John's University Law School, where he obtained his J.D. in 1960. After law school he worked as an attorney and provided legal assistance to civil rights activists. In 1961 he was appointed an assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of New York. He resigned from this position after one year and worked as legal counsel to the New York City Housing and Redevelopment Board, as legal assistant to Judge James L. Watson, as an associate counsel to the speaker of the New York State Assembly, and as general counsel to the National Advisory Commission on Selective Service. In the winter of 1963–1964 Rangel and his friend Percy Sutton founded the John F. Kennedy Democratic Club in Harlem, later renamed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Democratic Club.

Rangel began his career in politics in 1966, when he was elected to represent central Harlem in the New York State Assembly. He served two two-year terms as a leading liberal in the legislature, supporting the legalization of abortion, opposing stiffer penalties on prostitution, and endorsing antiwar protests.

Rangel moved into national politics in 1970, when he narrowly defeated the longtime incumbent congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who had represented Harlem since 1945. Once in office Rangel immediately established as his top priority the elimination of the drug trade. He called for the elimination of foreign aid to Turkey for its cultivation of opium poppies and opposed New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay's plan to issue maintenance doses of heroin to addicts.

In the 1970s Rangel took a leading position as a congressional dove. He consistently voted to reduce the military budget, opposed the development of the B-1 bomber and nuclear aircraft carriers, and vigorously criticized the war in Southeast Asia. Rangel's liberalism extended to domestic issues as well. He voted for busing to desegregate schools, federal assistance for abortions, the creation of a consumer protection agency, and the implementation of automobile pollution controls.

Rangel gained national exposure in 1974 as a member of the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment hearings for President Nixon. That year he was also elected chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, a position he held through 1975. In 1975 Rangel became the first African American appointed to the House Ways and Means Committee. He obtained the chairmanship of the influential health subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee in 1979. In 1980 he became a member of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, and in 1983 he was made a deputy whip by Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill and appointed chair of the Select Committee on Narcotics.

Through the 1980s Rangel served as the chief congressional gadfly on drug issues and repeatedly chastised the Reagan and Bush administrations for their "turtlelike speed" in addressing the narcotics crisis. In 1989, as chair of the House Narcotics Task Force, Rangel led a congressional delegation to the Caribbean and Mexico to help coordinate the international crackdown on drugs. In later years he served as a leading voice against the movement to legalize narcotics. In 1994 Rangel was challenged in the Democratic primary by Adam Clayton Powell IV, the son of the man he had unseated, but he emerged victorious.

Called "Mr. Harlem," Rangel has been elected to serve seventeen consecutive terms in Congress through 2005. He is the ranking member of the House Committee on Ways and Means, chair of the board of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and dean of the New York State Congressional Delegation. Rangel is also credited as the principal architect of the five billion dollar Federal Empowerment Zone project to revitalize the nation's urban areas.