Alma Johnson Powell, the wife of the late Secretary of State Colin Powell, has died.
Alma Powell was 86.
Family spokesperson Peggy Cifrino confirmed Alma Powell’s death, CNN reported.
Alma Powell died in Alexandria, Virginia, after a brief illness, but the specific cause was not released, The Washington Post reported.
Alma Powell was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and graduated from Fisk University in Nashville before she went to Emerson College in Boston, studying speech pathology and audiology, according to her biography on America’s Promise Alliance website.
She was a staff audiologist for the Boston Guild for the Hard of Hearing.
The Powells met on a blind date in 1961 before he was deployed to Vietnam, CNN reported. They were married for only four months before the military sent him away. She called the first years of their young marriage which she had to navigate alone, “the defining experience of my life.”
She talked about what it was like being a military spouse and the challenges that most face being uprooted every few years when their spouse is reassigned.
“Part of who I am is because of my career as a military wife. I think of the military as family,” Alma Powell said. “During the course of our young lives, he was often away. ...So, like many military spouses today, you’re essentially a single parent. Your job was to make a home wherever you were. Home was where we were as a family, wherever that was.
In all, Alma Powell moved 20 times including living in Virginia, North Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky, Colorado, Georgia and Germany, The Washington Post reported.
“She was with me the whole time. We’ve been married 58 years. And she put up with a lot. She took care of the kids when I was, you know, running around. And she was always there for me and she’d tell me, ‘That’s not a good idea.’ She was usually right,” Colin Powell said of his wife in 2021, a few months before his death.
Alma Powell was the Army liaison to the National Red Cross and while her husband was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, she served as the Advisor to the Red Cross of the Military District of Washington. As Colin Powell served as Secretary of State, she was the honorary president of the Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide.
Alma Powell was the chair emeritus of America’s Promise Alliance, a nonprofit created by Colin Powell to help at-risk youth which coordinates between “cross-sector association of community organizations, businesses, and government organizations,” and helps 25 million young people each year. It was created 27 years ago during The Presidents’ Summit for America’s Future, a partnership between the five living presidents at the time - former presidents Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.
She also was on the boards of several organizations, according to her biography on the alliance’s website.
Alma Powell had several honorary degrees and awards from Emerson College, Shenandoah University, Pew Partnership, Washingtonian magazine, the Women’s Center in Virginia and AARP The Magazine.
She was the author of two children’s books: “My Little Wagon” and “America’s Promise.”
Colin Powell died in 2021. The couple had three children, according to Biography.
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