Alma Powell, Birmingham Native and Wife of Gen. Colin Powell, Passes Away at 86

Alma Powell, wife of retired General and former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, has passed away at the age of 86.

Her death was confirmed by a family spokesperson.

“(Powell) was the grounding force of our family,” said the couple’s three children, Michael, Linda, and Annemarie, in a statement provided to CNN. “During childhoods marked by constant moving to new homes, we always felt secure, because home was wherever she stood. She was an exemplary role model for us and for the world. She served our country, alongside our father, with intelligence and grace. We will miss her terribly but take comfort in the fact that she had a life so well-lived and is reunited with our father.”

Alma Vivian Johnson Powell was born in Birmingham in 1937 and attended Parker High School and Fisk University in Nashville.

The eldest of two daughters, her father, nicknamed Big Red, was a school principal, while her mother ran a daycare, founded the first Girl Scout troop for Black girls in Alabama, and was the first African American to be elected assistant moderator of the United Church of Christ, according to her obituary.

After graduating from Fisk, she returned to Birmingham and hosted an afternoon radio show, “Luncheon with Alma,” on station WJLD. She soon moved to Boston to study speech pathology and audiology.

She met Lt. Colin Powell on a blind date and married him eight months later. The couple spent their honeymoon at the historic A.G. Gaston Motel.

In 1963, she returned to Birmingham while her husband was deployed for his first tour in Vietnam.

The Powells raised their three children in various locations, including Virginia, North Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky, Colorado, Georgia, and Germany. Alma served as an advisor to her husband while he held positions as National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and U.S. Secretary of State under George W. Bush. She reportedly convinced her husband not to run for president in 1996.

The couple founded America’s Promise Alliance, a youth organization, and Alma wrote two children’s books in support of it.

In what was believed to be Colin Powell’s final interview, he said in July 2021 that his wife was the greatest person he’d ever known.