Black veterans remember Colin Powell and offer him a final salute for the ages
Ten days before I boarded a plane to Afghanistan in January 2015, I wore my Army Dress Blues to my grandmother's funeral. The last time she saw me in my Dress Blues, I was graduating from West Point after serving as class president. My grandmother, Shirley Berry, was convinced that I would be America's next Colin Powell, the man who'd been her "hope and change" long before the nation had heard the name Barack Obama. She was a mother of three, and Powell was a role model, a God-fearing man whose character was rooted in modesty, discipline, and restraint. Because I loved her, Powell became my role model too.
I thought about her when I learned of Powell's death. And I thought of Black veterans such as Michael A. McCoy, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated photographer who inspired this effort along with the Black Veterans Project:
