Former Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel Of New York Dies At Age 94

Rangel was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

NEW YORK (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, an outspoken, gravel-voiced Harlem Democrat who spent nearly five decades on Capitol Hill and was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, died Monday at age 94.

His family confirmed the death in a statement provided by City College of New York spokesperson Michelle Stent. He died at a hospital in New York, Stent said.

A veteran of the Korean War, he defeated legendary Harlem politician Adam Clayton Powell in 1970 to start his congressional career. During the next 40-plus years, he became a legend himself — a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, dean of the New York congressional delegation, and in 2007, the first African American to chair the powerful Ways and Means Committee.

He stepped down from that committee amid an ethics cloud, and the House censured him in 2010. But he was reelected. He went on to serve in Congress until 2017, when he decided not to seek reelection.

Rangel was one of the Gang of Four — African American political figures who wielded great power in New York City and state politics, along with David Dinkins, New York City’s first black mayor; Percy Sutton, who was Manhattan Borough president, and Basil Paterson, a deputy mayor and New York secretary of state.