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or junkie who was trying to sell or deal or get others involved.
"I didn't do it. Never in my life, not even to experiment, not to try, not to see what it would be like, for two reasons. One, my parents would have killed me, but the second reason is that somewhere along the line I and a couple of my other friends ... we knew it was stupid. It was stupid. It was the most self-destructive thing you could do with the life God and your parents had given you."

Powell entered City College of New York in January, 1954, just shy of his seventeenth birthday. He struggled at first, but graduated with a degree in geology. However, it was the college's ROTC program that afforded him a 'home away from home' and helped him rescue his academic average. It was also where the "tall, skinny and somewhat awkward kid" learned he was a natural leader of men. The ROTC program launched Powell on an eleven year odyssey through the military, culminating with a detour through the National Security Agency and his appointment as Chairman of the JCS.
Finally, as he stood at the threshold of momentous opportunity, he was more than reluctant. He thwarted every attempt to pigeon hole him on the issue of his possible candidacy. There's no question that America was calling for the pragmatic, moral leadership Powell seems to represent, and it finally didn't really matter who's did the calling. If conservatives believed that Powell was the answer to their prayers, well that's their business. The most important thing is that the nation finally seemed ready to accept the leadership of a qualified black man at the highest possible level. As a country, the nation would have increased in stature with such an election. So why was he so stand-offish? Probably realized that he'd be forced to be the greatest president the nation has ever had, that he'd sit beneath a lamp of scrutiny unparalleled in history.
It should be remembered that thirty years ago the mere suggestion of a black candidate running for the presidency would have made liberals wistful, moderates edgy, and conservatives heatedly indignant. Besides, the probability of a black president living out his term of office was as remote a possibility as a man walking from the earth to Pluto. It seems pragmatic to think that, under such glaring political and media scrutiny, every decision Powell made would be called into question. The president would spend more time defending old positions than creating new ones, as the sad case of former New York City Mayor David Dinkins immediately brings to mind.
Perhaps Powell wanted to avoid such a fate, and who could blame him? Nevertheless, Jackie Robinson, on election to the starting lineup of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, faced the same situation: How can a man prove himself capable and do the best possible job, without getting his head blown off in the process? History records that, despite all the obstacles and dangers, Robinson exercised the only possible option he could: for the sake of his people and for the sake of the nation, he grit his teeth and went to work. Robinson's record speaks for itself, and, to this day, many people still feel Powell should have let his record speak too.

Learn more about this author, Roland Langley.
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