Charles Rangel, in his own words

City & State spoke with former Rep. Charles Rangel on Aug. 5, 2024, for a profile of Keith Wright, the Manhattan Democratic Party boss and son of Judge Bruce Wright, who was one of Rangel’s mentors. Rangel, from his apartment in Harlem, spoke for 40 minutes about Wright, whom he groomed to succeed him in Congress, only to see him lose to Adriano Espaillat in 2016.

After Rangel died on May 26 at age 94, City & State went back to the transcript of last year’s interview, where he discussed how he first came into politics and became one of the “Gang of Four,” along with David Dinkins, Basil Paterson and Percy Sutton. Rangel also detailed his relationship with Wright and his views on the shift of political power from Harlem to Brooklyn. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

For years, I’ve run into politicians who have said only fond things about working with you and knowing you. You must get that all the time.

No, no. I really can say that I’ve never had a bad day, because of the return I would get. It just allowed me to enjoy my work so much that anything that could be considered a setback (can’t compare with) all of the other things that I’ve enjoyed.

Judge Bruce Wright, father of Manhattan Democratic Committee Chair Keith Wright, was one of your mentors. Can you talk about what it was like knowing him?

Upon graduation, I began working in (Bruce Wright’s) law firm Weaver, Evans, Wingate and Wright. I might add, not only was his an outstanding African American law firm, but all of the (partners) became judges. I left there only to be appointed by Robert Kennedy as his assistant United States attorney. But that relationship only bonded me with the excitement of knowing such a complicated and intelligent person as Bruce Wright.

Keith Wright was very much influenced by his father and peers, right?

His son was the second generation and had what I never had, and that is the ability to be raised with successful people, and especially successful politicians. To me, that was the best education that an elected official could possibly get, because when I was (Keith Wright’s) age, all I had was a job out of high school, the U.S. Army and then returning to school, but not knowing anybody that had gone to college, much less in the family or the friends. So it would appear to me that Keith really had the formal education, but even more than that, the ability to have friends and admirers while he was growing up and ultimately becoming an elected official.

Who helped you get into politics? And how did the Gang of Four come about?

My first contact with anybody that could help me was with the county leader, John Raymond Jones. … He was the first African American county leader. He was a close partner with Adam Clayton Powell, and when I was in a local club, I got a call from J. Raymond Jones to meet with him, and he wanted to support me for a party position in the club I was in. My ego allowed me to believe that he was interested in how brilliant and smart, what a great politician I was to make. Little did I know that he was running for the City Council in addition to being a county leader, and the club I was in was supporting a candidate against them. So he figured if I was running against the lead of that club, it would enhance this ability to distract them from the candidate running against them.

And he was right. He won. I lost, but out of that loss, it elevated me from nobody to a player. Percy Sutton had run for that job half a dozen times, and so many other people had too. As a result of that, even though Percy wasn’t a candidate, we had met during the campaign trail, he was supporting someone else, and we agreed to join up with each other … since his candidate and I both lost, he joined with my club and I became a very popular young man with a political future.

J. Raymond Jones, he was still a big shot, I was a little shot, and he told me he couldn’t help me as long as I was associating myself with Percy Sutton. I said to him he ought to meet with Percy Sutton before he just wrote me off … (so,) he and I met with Percy in his apartment and we never looked back. Percy and I were able to really begin the Gang of Four. Percy Sutton brought with him Basil Paterson. J. Raymond Jones introduced us to David Dinkins. 

Denny Farrell also served as Manhattan Democratic County Committee chair, and Keith Wright followed him. How was it working with those two?

Because of my seniority and loyalty to the party, I had no problems with Denny Farrell. And then in the closing years of my career, Keith Wright became the county leader and how he (oversees the) political diversity that we have in New York County, I don’t want to worry. There’s always controversy. There’s always challenges, and it’s always been that way. To the best of my memory, I’ve always managed to stay out of it. Keith has done a fantastic job.

How did you groom Keith Wright to succeed you in Congress?

Now, I knew when he was serving in the state Legislature that he had ambitions, as so many others had, to succeed me. And so it didn’t take too much thought for me to consider him to be the candidate that I would be working with and grooming to succeed me. I think it was in 2012 when I was first challenged, that he said that he would be running against Espaillat, but I was in the hospital, and they changed the district lines, which, quite frankly, I lost all influence. They took a part of my district and ran it to the Dominican area in the Bronx. It was at that time that I thought for certain that Keith was the candidate, but he shared with me pretty late in the campaign that he wasn’t prepared to run.

It was a disappointment, and I did run, and I had not expected to. But then I made certain that it was clear that I was going to retire and the next time out, after I had won, Keith ran … (it) must have been 2016 … because I retired in 2016 and my term expired.

Wright and Espaillat have since had a sometimes tense relationship, right?

It appeared to me that Keith and Espaillat … don’t really have much working out for them in terms of cooperation. You could get the details (about) that for both of them, they’re very open about their dissatisfaction with each other.

How do you see Harlem now?

No one can take away our history and culture and the fact that we’re the capital of Black folks in the world. They can’t take that away from us, but the power we had with Adam Clayton Powell and Percy Sutton and Mayor Dinkins, Paterson and me, has passed on because of changes in population and a variety of other things. So change has taken place to our advantage here, during my political life, and it has changed for Brooklyn as well.

We really should take time out to sit down with you and do a good Q&A about your life and your career.

I’m 94 years old, and what is done is done, and it won’t be changed, and I loved every minute of it.