Former Secretary Of State Colin Powell has died from complication of COVID-19 at the age of 84.
Powell was a four-star general in the U.S. Army and the first African-American U.S. Secretary of State.
His family says he passed away this morning and that he was fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.
The retired general suffered from a blood cancer that hampers the body’s ability to fight infection.
They thanked the medical staff at Walter Reed and said “we have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American.”
Powell was born in 1937 in Harlem, New York, to parents who both immigrated from Jamaica to the United States before he was born.
In 1989, then-President Bush named Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the most powerful military position in the world.
He served under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005.