Former U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, a pioneering member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the first Black chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, died Monday at the age of 94. Rangel’s family confirmed his death in a statement, saying he passed away at a New York hospital.

Rangel was first elected to Congress in 1970 and served longer than any other New Yorker, except for Emanuel Celler. He retired in 2016 after winning a 23rd term, making him the ninth-longest continuously serving member of the House in American history.

In addition to his congressional career, Rangel served as a state assemblyman in New York for two terms. He was also a veteran of the Korean War and the last surviving member of Harlem’s “Gang of Four.” The influential group also included former New York Secretary of State Basil Paterson, former New York City Mayor David Dinkins and civil rights activist Percy Sutton.

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 as 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 continued to serve in Congress until his retirement in 2017.

Rangel was the last surviving member of the Gang of Four — African American political figures who wielded great power in New York City and state politics. The others were 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.

“Charlie was a true activist — we’ve marched together, been arrested together and painted crack houses together,” the Rev. Al Sharpton, leader of the National Action Network, said in a statement, noting that he met Rangel as a teenager.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries issued a statement calling Rangel “a patriot, hero, statesman, leader, trailblazer, change agent and champion for justice who made his beloved Harlem, the City of New York and the United States of America a better place for all.”

Rangel’s voice was memorable

Few could forget Rangel after hearing him talk. His distinctive gravel-toned voice and wry sense of humor were a memorable mix.

That voice — one of the most liberal in the House — was loudest in opposition to the Iraq War, which he branded a “death tax” on poor people and minorities. In 2004, he tried to end the war by offering a bill to restart the military service draft. Republicans called his bluff and brought the bill to a vote. Even Rangel voted against it.

A year later, Rangel’s fight over the war became bitterly personal with then-Vice President Dick Cheney.

Rangel said Cheney, who has a history of heart trouble, might be too sick to perform his job.

“I would like to believe he’s sick rather than just mean and evil,” Rangel said. After several such verbal jabs, Cheney hit back, saying Rangel was “losing it.”

The charismatic Harlem lawmaker rarely backed down from a fight after he first entered the House in 1971 as a dragon slayer of sorts, having unseated Powell in the Democratic congressional primary in 1970. The flamboyant elder Powell, a city political icon first elected to the House in 1944, was ill and haunted by scandal at the time.

In 1987, Congress approved what was known as the “Rangel amendment,” which denied foreign tax credits to U.S. companies investing in apartheid-era South Africa.

The House censured him over ethics violations

Rangel became leader of the main tax-writing committee of the House, which has jurisdiction over programs including Social Security and Medicare, after the 2006 midterm elections when Democrats ended 12 years of Republican control of the chamber. But in 2010, a House ethics committee conducted a hearing on 13 counts of alleged financial and fundraising misconduct over issues surrounding financial disclosures and use of congressional resources.

He was convicted of 11 ethics violations. The House found he had failed to pay taxes on a vacation villa, filed misleading financial disclosure forms and improperly solicited donations for a college center from corporations with business before his committee.

The House followed the ethics committee’s recommendation that he be censured, the most serious punishment short of expulsion.

‘Committed to fighting for the little guy’

Rangel looked after his constituents, sponsoring empowerment zones with tax credits for businesses moving into economically depressed areas and developers of low income housing.

“I have always been committed to fighting for the little guy,” Rangel said in 2012.

Rangel was born June 11, 1930. During the Korean War, he earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. He would always say that he measured his days, even the troubled ones around the ethics scandal, against the time in 1950 when he survived being wounded as other soldiers didn’t make it.

It became the title of his autobiography: “And I Haven’t Had A Bad Day Since.”

A high school dropout, he went to college on the G.I. Bill, getting degrees from New York University and St. John’s University Law School.

Charles Rangel, one of the longest-continually-serving congressmen in American history and a Purple Heart Veteran, died on Memorial Day, May 26, at age 94.

“A towering figure in American politics and a champion for justice, equity, and opportunity, Congressman Rangel dedicated over four decades of his life to public service,” his family said in a statement Monday. “Throughout his career, Congressman Rangel fought tirelessly for affordable housing, urban revitalization, fair tax policies, and equal opportunities for all Americans.”

As a representative of New York’s 13th district, which included Rangel’s birthplace of Harlem, Rangel, or “the Lion of Lenox Avenue,” as he was sometimes called, served as a congressman for close to a half-century. He began his career in Congress in 1970 and retired 47 years later, in 2017. Although his tenure was marred by 11 counts of ethics violations, of which he was found guilty by a congressional ethics committee in 2010, Rangel, a liberal Democrat, was a singularly influential force in New York politics and one of the most important Black members of Congress for decades.

“Charlie was a true activist: We’ve marched together, been arrested together and painted crack houses together,” the reverend Al Sharpton said in a statement. “My heart is broken by the passing of a lion of Harlem today.”

Rangel was the last surviving member of the Gang of Four, a coalition of Black politicians from Harlem which included former New York City mayor David Dinkins, state senator Basil Paterson, and local politician Percy Sutton. As a native and long-serving representative of Harlem, Rangel also became a cultural ambassador for the neighborhood, recalling stories in his later years of crossing paths with jazz greats like Miles Davis and Charlie Parker. In 2019, he spoke with Rolling Stone about the importance of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, the concert series that took place just before his election to Congress and was documented, more than 50 years later, in 2021’s Summer of Soul. “White folks might have a county fair, but we didn’t have cows, things like that,” Rangel told Rolling Stone. “We had the greatest jazz musicians in the world.” Editor’s picks

Charles B. Rangel was born in 1930 in Harlem and had a turbulent upbringing. “I came up from nothing,” he said in 2018. “I was a fatherless high school dropout with a gift of living by my wits and hiding my inadequacies behind bravado.” In 1948, he enlisted in the Army, and soon found himself on the front lines of the Korean War, where he received a Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

After becoming a fixture in local politics, Rangel was elected to Congress in 1970 and co-founded the Congressional Black Caucus the very next year. During his tenure in Congress, Rangel fought for his working- and middle-class constituents: He was a key proponent of the Affordable Care Act, helped expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, created “empowerment zones” for low-income areas in his district, and helped improve relationships with countries like Haiti and Cuba. In 2007, he became the first Black politician to steer the House Ways and Means Committee. Trending Stories ‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 Ends With Confusion and a Phony Cliffhanger Jasmine Crockett: ‘It’s Time for Republicans to Question Trump’s Mental Acuity’ Kristen Stewart’s ‘The Chronology of Water’ Is One Hell of a Directorial Debut Mike Johnson Insists It’s ‘Moral’ to Throw People Off Medicaid

In 2010, the House Committee on Ethics found him guilty of 11 separate charges pertaining to his personal finances and financial disclosures. Still, he was re-elected in 2012 and served several more terms before retiring in 2017 at age 86. After announcing his retirement, Rangel reflected upon his long career. “Since November 30, 1950,” he said, referring to the day he was wounded in Korea, “no matter what crises we have gone through individually or collectively, Charlie Rangel has been blessed never, never, never to have a bad day.”

But speaking a decade earlier, Rangel reflected on the country he’d spent most of his adult life working for in an interview with Mother Jones. “The hopes and dreams of so many who have come to this country and those who have strived to get into the middle class and now, because of food prices and oil and an inequitable tax system, people are losing their home, their hope, their jobs, their kids’ tuition,” he said. “When a country loses that… it loses its heart.”

Former New York City Congressman Charlie Rangel, a fixture on Capitol Hill and Democratic power player for nearly half a century, died Monday. He was 94.

Rangel, 94, was a Harlem political institution who spent his life in public service, from the Korean War to becoming the first African American to chair the influential House Ways and Means Committee.

His influence can still be felt today, said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who sits atop the Empire State’s political delegation in the House – a role long held by Rangel himself.

Advertisement

10 Former Harlem congressman Charlie Rangel has died. Brigitte Stelzer

10 Charlie Rangel was the surviving member of the “Gang of Four.” REUTERS

“The Lion of Lenox Ave was a transformational force of nature,” Jeffries wrote on X. “Harlem, NYC & America are better today because of his service.

“May he forever rest in power,” Jeffries said.

Advertisement

Rangel was first elected to Congress in 1970 after challenging civil-rights leader Adam Clayton Powell Jr. for his seat.

During his tenure, Rangel was part of the Gang of Four, a legendary political coalition from Harlem.

10 Charlie Rangel served 23 terms in Congress. BRIGITTE STELZER

Advertisement

The four — Rangel, former Mayor David Dinkins, former Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton and former state Sen. Basil Paterson — were a powerful political force centered in Upper Manhattan for years.

The City College of New York in Harlem — which named its school of public service after Rangel — posted a statement online announcing Rangel’s death on Memorial Day and deeming him a champion for his Big Apple constituents.

10 Charles Rangel celebrates winning election in 1970.

“He served for 23 terms in the House of Representatives and was cited as the most effective lawmaker in Congress, leading all of his colleagues in passing legislation,” the statement said.

Advertisement

In another online tribute, Big Apple businessman and supermarket magnate John Catsimatidis called Rangel “a symbol of Harlem, a fighter for justice, a skilled diplomat.

“We knew each other for more than 50 years,” Catsimatidis said. “Charlie was a Harlem youth. You couldn’t walk down a street without someone calling his name.”

10 Rangel served on Capitol Hill for nearly 50 years before retiring in 2017. Getty Images

Still, Rangel’s illustrious career was tarnished by an ethics scandal and accusations first reported by The Post.

Rangel had owned a beachfront village in a sunny Dominican Republic resort but failed to report his income from it.

10 Congressman Charles Rangel at the Beach in the Dominican Republic inside the Punta Cana Resort. Brigitte Stelzer

The Post’s exposé included an infamous front-page photo of Rangel sleepily basking in the sun on the beach property.

A House panel convicted Rangel on ethics charges after a two-year investigation found he repeatedly broke rules, dodged taxes, concealed assets and misused his position to raise money for the City College center that bears his name.

Advertisement

Despite Rangel’s pleas for leniency, his House colleagues overwhelmingly voted to censure him – a rare step only taken 28 times in the legislative body’s more than 200-year history. The move involves a public vote of condemnation by the chamber, although those censured keep all of their powers as House members.

10 Congressman Charles Rangel participating in the Puerto Rican Day Parade. Brigitte Stelzer

Rangel eventually retired from Congress in 2017.

Mayor Eric Adams on Monday joined the flood of tributes for Rangel, calling him “one of our city’s greatest elected leaders.

Advertisement

“I am so sad to lose a dear friend and exemplary model of devotion and courage,” Adams said in a statement. “My prayers are with his family, Harlem, and all who knew him.”

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is gunning for Adams’ job, characterized Rangel as a “giant in every sense.

10 Nelson Mandela stands with Graca Machel, his wife, and Congressman Charles Rangel. William Farrington

“He taught me that leadership is about lifting others up, and in the face of injustice, you don’t flinch, you don’t fold — you fight,” the pugilistic Cuomo said in a statement.

Advertisement

State Sen. Cordell Cleare (D-Harlem) noted the Korean War vet Rangel’s oft-repeated mantra that he “never had a bad day since the war.

“His passing today, on Memorial Day, at 5 a.m., is both poignant and painful and yet somewhat befitting in a historical way,” Cleare said in a statement.

10 Rangel and Cuomo shake hands in 2006. Christopher Sadowski

“Charlie was a brave soldier in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, earning a Purple Star and a Bronze Star for his fearless achievements, such as saving fellow soldiers. This would have been his day.”

Advertisement

Even some New York leaders who had at best complicated relationships with Rangel chimed in with praise.

10 Rangel seen at his office on Capitol Hill in 2010. AP

The Rev. Al Sharpton – who, as with Rangel, was arrested in 1999 while protesting the police shooting of Amadou Diallo – often found himself at political cross purposes to the Harlem legislator. But Monday, he praised Rangel as an “unshakable force in American politics.”

“I first met Charlie as a teenager, and for over fifty years, he remained a constant presence in my life and in the fight for our community,” Sharpton said in a statement.

– Additional reporting by Vaughn Golden

Charles Rangel, the former Democratic congressman from New York who championed his Harlem community on Capitol Hill for almost five decades, died Monday, his family said.

He was 94.

Rangel’s death was confirmed in a statement provided by City College of New York spokesperson Michelle Stent, who said he died at a hospital in New York.

Politicians and supporters remembered Rangel, known as Charlie, for his years in public service and deep roots in New York City. He was born in Harlem and was first elected to Congress in 1970, representing a congressional district that was first drawn up in the 1940s and allowed the neighborhood’s majority Black voters to send one of their own to Washington.

Rangel served for so long that he earned the nickname the “Lion of Lenox Avenue,” referring to one of Harlem’s primary corridors.

“Charlie Rangel was a great man, a great friend, and someone who never stopped fighting for his constituents and the best of America,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a post Monday on X. “The list of his accomplishments could take pages, but he leaves the world a much better place than he found it.”

In a post on X, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said he was “sad to lose a dear friend and exemplary model of devotion and courage.” The Rev. Al Sharpton called Rangel a “trailblazing legislator and an unshakable force in American politics.”

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo also honored Rangel as his “mentor and friend.”

“He had that Harlem fire in his heart and a joy in his soul that no battle could extinguish,” Cuomo said in a statement, adding that “he never forgot where he came from.”

Rangel, a veteran of the Korean War, had been a high school dropout but eventually went to college on the G.I. Bill, getting degrees from New York University and St. John’s University Law School.

In 1970, he defeated legendary Harlem politician Adam Clayton Powell 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 Black chair of the influential Ways and Means Committee.

“I have always been committed to fighting for the little guy,” Rangel said in 2012.

Two years earlier, he had stepped down from the Ways and Means Committee amid an ethics cloud. The House would later censure him in a 333-79 vote, with nearly a dozen ethics violations that included breaching a gifts ban, improper use of influence and failure to disclose income.

After the House’s censure vote of 333-79, Rangel rose before his colleagues in sorrow.

“I know in my heart I am not going to be judged by this Congress,” he said. “I’ll be judged by my life in its entirety.”

Rangel remained in Congress and won the 2012 primary. His Harlem district overwhelmingly voted him in again as Barack Obama won a second presidential term.

Despite the political stain later in his career, his time in Congress was exceedingly busy.

According to the statement provided to the City College of New York, Rangel sponsored 40 bills and resolutions that became law throughout his tenure. His significant legislative accomplishments include championing the national Empowerment Zone program, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, and the Affordable Care Act, which Obama signed into law in 2010.

Rangel was chairman of the Ways and Means Committee when the Affordable Care Act was being heavily debated in Congress and he was under pressure from the ethics investigations.

In a 2009 interview with Time, Rangel was defiant when asked about his legacy.

“Well, as Rhett Butler once said in ‘Gone With the Wind,’ if I’m gone, quite frankly, I don’t give a damn,” he told the magazine.

Rangel served in Congress until 2017, when he retired. He lamented to The New York Times in 2016, when his eventual successor, Rep. Adriano Espaillat, was poised to become the first Dominican American elected to Congress. Rangel said he feared that meant his Harlem district would no longer have a Black representative.

“Can you tell the people in Boston that some day you won’t have an Irish congressman?” Rangel said.

Rangel was the last surviving member of the so-called “Gang of Four” — a group of Black political figures who wielded great power in New York City and state politics. The others were 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.

The Congressional Black Caucus said in a statement Monday that its 61 members were mourning the loss of Rangel.

“His legacy is one of tireless advocacy, historic firsts, and dedication to justice and equality,” the caucus said. “May he rest in power and everlasting peace.”

Rangel is preceded in death by his wife, Alma, a social worker whom he first met in a Harlem ballroom in the 1950s; she died in 2024. The couple shared two children.