A Quiet Giant Falls!

With his death, Congress loses one of its last links to a generation of lawmakers shaped by the civil rights movement and postwar America. His career spanned eras of dramatic political transformation, from the 1970s through the 2010s.

Charles Rangel’s legacy will ultimately be measured not only by committee leadership or legislative milestones, but by the communities he represented for nearly half a century — and the imprint he left on the institution of Congress itself.