Colin Powell: Commencement Address at Howard University

Impact

Powell’s words were received by his immediate audience with general approval. Several graduates gave him high marks in personal interviews, and presumably they reflected the views of their parents and families, too. The fact that Powell was named to Howard’s board of regents a few months after his speech also suggests that the university’s administration was suitably impressed. But his most enthusiastic audience was the national press corps. The New York Times and Washington Post gave Powell enthusiastic reviews as a voice of reason on the subject of Howard University and as a reassuring rejection of black supremacists who advocated violence as an important component to full racial liberation; the black mainstream press echoed these impressions. Moreover, one should remember that Powell gave this address at a crucial moment in his consideration of a political career, which included the possibility of running for president of the United States. Bluntly put, the Howard commencement address was, in some sense, an effective campaign speech.

In the years following Howard remarks, Powell’s potential presidential aspirations were largely forgotten along with the historical context of his speech. Today, Powell’s words on this occasion are most often found in anthologies of great civil rights speeches rather than in discussions of his political ambitions, which in the mid-1990s may have rivaled those about Barack Obama in the early twenty-first century. Thus, Powell’s Howard speech is a fascinating example of how the political rhetoric of one moment can become the timeless wisdom of another.