Words from General Colin Powell

Recently, this blogger had the chance to attend a high school graduation where the commencement address was given General Colin Powell (United States Army, Retired). Standing in front of the graduates, taller than he ever seemed to look on television, a man who served as both the Secretary of State, fourth in line to succeed the President of the United States in the event of national tragedy, told the students of his academic career. A man who became the youngest officer and first Afro-Caribbean American to serve as the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, during Operation Desert Storm and the Persian Gulf War, admitted that he was not a good student.

His career at City College of New York, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in geology in 1958, was middling. When he recounts this, he notes the irony that the City College of New York is now home to the Colin L. Powell Center for Leadership and Service, several scholarships bearing his name, and other programs bearing his name, despite his academic career there. He claims his grades were low enough that without including Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC classes) he might not have graduated.

General Powell is the son of Jamaican immigrant parents and a product of Harlem during the 1940s and 50s. In all likelihood, he’d be one of those who Promising Pages reaches out to, those who are unlikely to have books at home and see school as a chore rather than a place of enrichment. That General Powell managed to find a home in the military is great, but things could have obviously been much different, and his later-life focus on education, including an M.B.A from The George Washington University demonstrates his belief in the importance of education.

To the class departing into great wide world, General Powell had some important advice that we at Promising Pages would like to pass on, that we want you to keep with you and we will keep with us as we work to ensure that no child in Charlotte is ever wanting for reading material when there is none available and that no child is lost because their literacy skills create a barrier against being successful, in whatever endeavors they face:

“Never let failure and disappointment get you down. […] I fail. And I am afraid from time to time. But that is a part of life.”

“I didn’t join the army to be a general. I joined to be a soldier. I didn’t have to be a general to feel successful. I had to be a good soldier to be successful.”

“Always show more kindness than might seem necessary, because the person receiving it might need it more than you know.”

According to General Powell, the world is becoming “less of a battlefield, more of a playing field.” It would be wrong, disadvantageous, and sad to not do everything we can to level the playing field for all Americans, especially when leveling that playing field can be as simple as providing books that would go unread to children who need them, who might be lost otherwise. A level playing field is what Promising Pages is all about.