Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), Congress’s longest-serving Black lawmaker, retired in 2016 after 46 years due to a near-fatal spinal infection, prioritizing his wife’s wishes over lucrative speaking offers. A Rockefeller-backed trailblazer, he championed the Wrangell Amendment (taxing U.S. firms in apartheid-era South Africa), expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, and pushed housing reforms—often with GOP allies—while facing Ethics Committee censure for fundraising missteps. He laments today’s polarized politics, missing the bipartisan unity that shaped progress from slavery to modern democracy, and notes Bill Clinton’s funeral tribute. Rangel’s legacy underscores both institutional resilience and the cost of personal sacrifice in public service. [Automatically generated summary]
And we continue our day-long marathon, remembering notable figures who died this year.
Up next, we'll show you a 2016 C-SPAN interview with New York Democratic Representative Charles Wrangell, then a 2010 House floor speech from Michigan Democratic Representative Carolyn Kilpatrick.
After that, it's a funeral service for Wyoming Republican Senator Alan Simpson.
Former New York Democratic Representative Charles Wrangell also died in 2025 at the age of 94.
During his 46 years in Congress, Wrangell was the first African American to serve on the House Ways and Means Committee.
In 2016, he sat down with C-SPAN to discuss his retirement from Congress.
Representative Charlie Wrangell, Democrat of New York, 86 years old, 23 terms in the House.
That's 46 years.
When did you decide that this was going to be your last term?
That's almost unfair because I never thought about it.
It must have been around three years ago.
I went to a local hospital for what they call a procedure that was supposed to take a few hours.
And I got a spinal infection, a virus.
And I was in intensive care for I don't know how long, but it was the first time that I can remember in life that I was totally alone.
And I thought about the wife and the kids and all of these things.
And I told the wife, what about this?
And what happened?
And she was telling me these things.
And I said, honey, why didn't you tell me about it?
It sounded like it was so exciting.
And she says, Charlie, I knew your commitment before we got married.
I knew your passion.
I knew you were good at what you do.
And I just wasn't certain I should give you an alternative.
Well, I love my wife, but I felt so awkward.
It seemed like being so selfish.
And I knew then.
So I didn't have enough time to recruit a candidate that it took two and a half years.
But I can say that the rest of my life is to make my wife happy.
And that too is selfish because that's going to make me happy again.
But the kids, the grandkids doing different things, raising money for kids.
Because quite frankly, I was so close to that category of this kid could never succeed.
And that G.I. Bill, that G.I. Bill and my wife opened myself to a world that nobody in my family or community knew.
And I'm going to have so much fun trying to see how many kids with my wife's permission was she's given to raise money for them and to raise money by going out to the private sector and giving talks, but only go places that my wife would want to go.
Well, I was approached by several speaking agencies that corporations encouraged it during their conventions that they would like breaks for politicians and what's it really like and what did you do and what caused this and I've been involved in the impeachments of Nixon and the change of Republican and Democrats.
When I started I was endorsed by Democrats, Republicans, liberals and conservatives and that's a story.
And I said, no, no, no.
And they said, you better ask your wife about this.
And they showed the different places that these people were having conventions.
And their places that was on our bucket list that we wanted to see.
And they're willing to pay me.
And I'm saying, that's the last thing I need is a whole lot of problem with taxes.
And so the city college of New York is right on a hill overlooking Harlem.
When I was a kid, I thought it was Riverside Church.
Nobody told me that's where you can go to get an education.
And that same time, I was reading in a local newspaper that kids couldn't make a $6,000 a year tuition.
$6,000.
That's because the mean income was $35,000 of their parents.
So between the speaking agency, the fees for service, the kids, and they want to make a replica of my congressional office so the kids can come in and I can tell those stories about it.
And this picture was taken when.
And there's no salary involved.
But like I said, if the wife says it makes sense, I owe her big time.
unidentified
You have been here for 46 years.
Why did you decide to run?
Do you remember why you decided to run the first time?
I was helpful in getting a very important guy a judgeship.
And he was helpful in saying I would join the law firm.
I called my wife and I said, we've made it now.
I got so-and-so's law firm.
I got his clients and everything.
But in the course of being in the assembly, Governor Rockefeller was given a lecture to members of the Assembly why he was going to go to Congress.
And I, as a wise guy, said, well, Governor, you can go to Congress, but I wish you let my congressman come back home.
At that time, that's another story.
Adam Clayton Powell, he left the district, he left the country, he was in Bemini.
And I learned then, never try to be a white guy or a wise guy if you're not in control of the mic.
And he said, assemblymen, if you can bring your congressman back home, I welcome that you go there.
I'll remove the criminal sanctions because we need him in New York State just as bad as you want your congressman back.
I went home and says, I really did it this time.
But we did go to Bemini.
And I tried to make it clear to Congressman Powell that the last thing in the world I wanted to do was go south to go to Washington, D.C.
And I was so happy being in Albany almost part-time with a law firm.
And I'm beginning to learn what life is all about.
And when he got finished embarrassing me in front of my wife and patting me on the cheek and telling me how invincible he was, I knew then that I had no choice.
He kept me waiting, my wife and I waited for about 12 hours.
He ridiculed me in the front.
He just felt that.
And I was trying to tell him there were six people running.
And I would be in trouble if one of these other people won because I'm supporting him, which made me in four years a part of the machine.
I mean, I'm only there for four years.
So I ran and about six people ran.
We got a pretty good plurality, but I won about 500 votes.
And of course, I had a good wife and we knew what the hell to do.
A friend of mine, Hugh Carey, who later became governor, was a member of Congress.
He says to my wife, whatever you do, you come down and bring the family here because he lost family, friends, and everything.
This wife had just passed and he lost part of his life.
So the wife came down.
She was a true partner down here.
And I guess that should answer that question because it was exciting.
unidentified
What would you say your legislative achievements have been over these years?
It's almost saying, you know, what was the best day of your 50-year marriage?
I can tell you this.
I've never had a real bad day that I regretted running for Congress.
I never had a day that I really felt I couldn't make a positive difference.
And I never found that I ran out of challenges.
When Nelson Mandela knew who I was when he got out of jail with the Wrangell Amendment, and he called it the bloody Wrangell Amendment because so many white South Africans called it that.
And it caused any U.S. firms, if you want to stay in South Africa, then you got to pay the United States taxes, and they left.
When it came to the common sense thing that no American should work 40 hours a week and get paid and still be in poverty, and we were able to create the earning income tax credit to say, no, you don't owe taxes.
We give you a check for your commitment.
But most all of the housing that we have for low-income was an initiative.
And I can't tell you to work with a president like Clinton to get a bill passed for communities like mine that will provide incentives for people to come.
So being at the right place, being in the leadership, being in the majority, being able to say someone should do something about it, and people saying that someone should be you.
Constantly, you know, you don't, you come here every day with the hopes.
And of course the atmosphere was entirely different.
As I look over the photographs now, my wife and I, it's hard for us to remember sometimes who was the Republican, who was the Democrats.
They were friends and we worked together.
I remember hearing Tip O'Neill protected the rights of a Republican senior member that went on trips with him, said, do what you want to do, but don't hurt him.
It was an entirely different atmosphere.
And it was the best part of my life.
unidentified
You were named the first African American to serve as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, one of the key committees in the House.
Overseeing taxes.
What do you think your legacy will be on the Ways and Means Committee?
And people would say, Charlie, when you get that job, they got to come after you.
And that could have been the bottom of my feeling about politics, except when the final story is told and it's public.
They said you didn't steal any money, you didn't take any money, you paid your taxes.
But when you were trying to raise money for those kids, either you were unaware or you ignored the fact that you could not use the paper that had the picture of the eagle in the United States Congress.
You should have used stationary that had the capital in the United States Congress.
And you know how many times you did that?
Thousands of times.
You know how many laws that would break.
You mail each one and violating the law and asking people for money to do it.
And when the question was asked, because I didn't even attend the hearing, what do you think, one Democrat asked, what's the worst thing that Congressman Wrangell did?
He said, his people did not keep good books, and he was just too active in trying to raise money for those kids.
Now, this is not a press release.
This is the public record.
So we fought the thing to the Supreme Court, and there was no question that the way things went, where you weren't allowed to call witnesses and all those things, was undemocratic.
But the Supreme Court said, whatever the House of Representatives would do, it did not have to be fair or equitable.
That due process is a part of the Constitution, but it does not concern itself with the House of Representatives.
So lawyers would say that can't be.
How could you exclude the taking away of reputation and anything that happened and say the due process there?
Because we have the separation.
They don't tell us what to do, and we don't tell them what to do.
And so my lawyer said, then if it was a kangaroo court, if they knew they were just waiting for him, they just wanted him, and they decided they were just going to get him for reasons that were totally unfair.
The court is blind to whatever they say when they know it's up to them to select their membership.
unidentified
Congressman, you're referring to the House centering you for ethics violations.
I should have known the difference between the stationery that you use when you're soliciting.
It never entered my mind if I'm soliciting for the College of the City of New York, not for me.
It was a public college.
What regrets could I have had?
Yes, I should have said to the Ethics Committee, before I send out these letters, would you please approve it?
I should not have had confidence in the people that normally take care of putting it together.
But I don't have any regret about my intent, but like the prosecutor said, sloppiness is something that there's no way in the world I could blame anyone.
unidentified
the guy that signed the letters according to observers you could have just probably gotten a minor punishment from the ethics committee but you thought i was wrong I could have, yes.
But I, first of all, I was the one that called for the hearing.
I was the one that called for a forensic examination for 20 years of my taxes, of my conduct.
And it took them years before they came to a conclusion.
And I would challenge them on the floor and say, whatever you got, just bring it out so I can clear my name.
Someone must have said, you want us to bring it out, we will bring it out.
But I certainly would have negotiated if I knew that they would have had blindness on and knew that they were complete in charge of the process.
I just could not believe you could have a constitution and just due process is taken out of the members' rights to determine the conduct of its members.
But let me make it abundantly clear.
Members had to vote on the censure during a political time.
And I was in the news as someone that was being censured.
They had to vote on it.
So the question became, like for Adam Powell, my predecessor, when they kicked him out of Congress, and I came down here and I found nobody was angry with Adam.
They were not thinking about going back home, explaining to their voters at the time they were up for election that they condoned in any way Adam Caton Spowell's conduct.
And while they started off defending me, the closer the election came, the more people would believe that, what do you want to do?
Protect Charlie Wrangell?
You want to get reelected.
Now, I have never, never had to make that decision.
But I could not get angry with somebody because most people who had no election problem, they were with me.
And nobody in the Congress, when they hung my picture up, all the Republicans were there, the informer speakers, past speakers, what a wonderful guy I was.
And even today, no one would ever think about saying that my conduct in this House has brought any shame to anybody.
unidentified
And we're talking in the Ways and Means Committee Library.
And I don't know what is coming back in my lifetime.
The camaraderie.
To be able to say that you have a job, if you want to call it that, because I never looked at it that way.
Where people said that in this great country, we got to pick 435 people.
They don't look alike.
They have different backgrounds.
They came to this country in different ways.
And the only thing they have in common is that they love this country.
And they want this country to be great.
And that in a few hundred years, they allowed people look like you to go from slavery to the highest court in the land.
And you're part of that.
And what your job is to learn about what these other Americans are thinking so that we can get a fear shake in this great country.
What a concept.
I don't see how these guys thought it up, quite frankly.
I think they screwed up on Electoral College.
But other than that, to have a constitution where they weren't even thinking about people of color, weren't thinking about women, weren't thinking about poor people, but it had the elasticity to build and to grow.
And even today, I don't think it's been tested the way it is in this last presidential election.
I mean, somebody gets 2 million votes more than somebody else and they lose.
It's got to be hard to explain that.
And I put in a bill with Senator Boxer, drawing her bill rather, to get rid of the Electoral College only because people should understand that things have changed since that document was written.
So we ought to constantly review the parts that don't make sense and keep the parts that allowed us to have such a great nation.
unidentified
During Representative Wrangell's funeral service in Manhattan, Bill Clinton was among several current and previous Democratic Party leaders to speak.