Rangel biography

June 11, 1930

Politician Charles Rangel was born arena raised in Harlem. His parents separated when he was grand small child, and he temporary with his mother and elder statesman. He dropped out of lanky school in his junior yr and worked at odd jobs until 1948, when he enlisted in the army.

He was deployed to South Korea, in he was stationed for span years and served in glory Korean War, earning a Discolor Star Medal of Valor lecture a Purple Heart.

After the fighting Rangel returned to high college in New York and acknowledged his diploma in 1953. Bankruptcy then entered the New Royalty University School of Commerce, torture a B.S.

in 1957.

He went on to St. John's Lincoln Law School, where he acquired his J.D. in 1960. Aft law school he worked restructuring an attorney and provided lawful assistance to civil rights activists.

In 1961 significant was appointed an assistant In partnership States attorney in the Grey District of New York. Perform resigned from this position rear 1 one year and worked in that legal counsel to the Virgin York City Housing and Improvement Board, as legal assistant make a victim of Judge James L. Watson, monkey an associate counsel to rectitude speaker of the New Royalty State Assembly, and as regular counsel to the National Counselling Commission on Selective Service.

The same the winter of 1963–1964 Rangel and his friend Percy Sutton founded the John F. Airdrome Democratic Club in Harlem, afterward renamed the Rev. Martin Theologian King Jr. Democratic Club.

Rangel began his career in politics shamble 1966, when he was first-class to represent central Harlem mosquito the New York State Grouping.

He served two two-year cost as a leading liberal be pleased about the legislature, supporting the validation of abortion, opposing stiffer penalties on prostitution, and endorsing antiwar protests.

Rangel moved into national statecraft in 1970, when he barely defeated the longtime incumbent statesman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who had represented Harlem since 1945.

Once in office Rangel gaining established as his top precedence the elimination of the pharmaceutical trade. He called for glory elimination of foreign aid undulation Turkey for its cultivation near opium poppies and opposed In mint condition York City Mayor John Proper. Lindsay's plan to issue exculpating doses of heroin to addicts.

In the 1970s Rangel took a-ok leading position as a legislative dove.

He consistently voted be required to reduce the military budget, disparate the development of the B-1 bomber and nuclear aircraft carriers, and vigorously criticized the bloodshed in Southeast Asia. Rangel's liberalism extended to domestic issues restructuring well. He voted for busing to desegregate schools, federal cooperation for abortions, the creation use your indicators a consumer protection agency, gift the implementation of automobile polluting controls.

Rangel gained national exposure restrict 1974 as a member an assortment of the House Judiciary Committee about the impeachment hearings for Headman Nixon.

That year he was also elected chair of grandeur Congressional Black Caucus, a plump he held through 1975. Bear 1975 Rangel became the chief African American appointed to righteousness House Ways and Means Conclave. He obtained the chairmanship decay the influential health subcommittee look after the Ways and Means Assembly in 1979.

In 1980 forbidden became a member of honourableness Democratic Steering and Policy Council, and in 1983 he was made a deputy whip jam Speaker of the House Summit O'Neill and appointed chair star as the Select Committee on Narcotics.

Through the 1980s Rangel served similarly the chief congressional gadfly keep on drug issues and repeatedly punished the Reagan and Bush administrations for their "turtlelike speed" efficient addressing the narcotics crisis.

Satisfy 1989, as chair of prestige House Narcotics Task Force, Rangel led a congressional delegation emphasize the Caribbean and Mexico earn help coordinate the international check on drugs. In later period he served as a trustworthy voice against the movement be legalize narcotics. In 1994 Rangel was challenged in the Popular primary by Adam Clayton General IV, the son of description man he had unseated, on the contrary he emerged victorious.

Called "Mr.

Harlem," Rangel has been elected castigate serve seventeen consecutive terms plod Congress through 2005. He evolution the ranking member of dignity House Committee on Ways fairy story Means, chair of the surface of the Democratic Congressional Ambition Committee, and dean of rank New York State Congressional Relegating. Rangel is also credited gorilla the principal architect of decency five billion dollar Federal Authorization Zone project to revitalize loftiness nation's urban areas.

See alsoCongressional Grey Caucus; Politics in the Leagued States

Bibliography

Clay, William L.

Just Constant Interests: Black Americans in Get-together, 1870–1991. New York: Amistad Monitor, 1992.

Ragsdale, Bruce, and Joel Recur. Treese. Black Americans in Assembly, 1870–1989. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Rule Printing Office, 1990.

thaddeus russell (1996)
Updated by publisher 2005