Today's Black Love History Lesson | Love & 2 Wars

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We celebrate the love of Alma and Colin Powell for having that kind of love that does not boast and yet endures.

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Alma and Colin met during a time of two wars - the one against racism in the South and the one in Vietnam.

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Alma Vivian Johnson Powell was born the eldest of two daughters to two educators in Birmingham, AL. After graduating from Fisk University, she went to Boston to study speech pathology at Emerson University. There, she met husband, General Colin L. Powell and married the same year they met.

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Alma and Colin traveled the world together as Colin came up the ranks in the military.

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In 1963, Colin went to Vietnam while Alma was pregnant. During this time, Alma went to live with her parents in Birmingham, AL.

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“It was like we had two wars going on at once,” she says in an Ebony Magazine interview. “In Birmingham, people were hurt, children were killed. What made it more difficult in the early days of the Vietnam War was that no one knew you were over there. But then again, you didn’t have the anti-war demonstrators, either.”

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For context, the 1963 Birmingham saw:

- Black homes and Churches bombed

- Sit-ins and Marches

- Military force being used on demonstrators

- MLK's "I have a dream speech"

- President Kennedy assassinated

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Alma never quizzed her husband about the dangers he faced during his first tour in Vietnam and she never told Colin about the dangers she faced back home in Birmingham. Instead they exchanged letters of love and support.

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General Colin L. Powell went on to become known as an American politician, diplomat and retired four-star general who served as the first Black United States Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005.

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Alma went on to Chair America's Promise, the nation's largest partnership dedicated to improving the lives of children and youth. She has also authored two children's books, America's Promise and My Little Red Wagon. In 2011 she was named the NASBE's National Education Policy Leader of the Year along with her husband.

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Today, they are still in love and enjoying retirement in Virginia. Any love that can find hope and endure those times is a love to be celebrated!