Harlem’s undefeated congressman, the Honorable Charles B. Rangel, was bid adieu with a requiem mass Friday at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Endearingly addressed as Charlie Rangel, the longtime representative was revered as the “Lion of Lenox Avenue.” Befitting his respect and esteem, it seemed that the entire Uptown community turned out to pay tribute.
So did the most prominent Democratic political leaders in the nation, including 20 past and present members of Congress. Gov. Kathy Hochul, President Bill Clinton, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Gale Brewer, Keith Wright, Cordell Cleare, Dr. Yusef Salaam, Inez Dickens, Pam Perkins, and scores more were all in attendance. In short, it was a sendoff with all the drama and ceremony of political theater that Rangel so dearly loved.
Delivering an opening salute, the governor called him “a giant in American life … a warrior for justice and such a proud, proud son of Harlem.” “I feel the presence of Harlem in this room today,” Hochul said.
From the time I arrived in Harlem, in 1985, seeking support to restore Alexander Hamilton’s house, The Grange, I was aware of Charlie Rangel’s importance, but it wasn’t until 1998 that we became acquainted. That December, he gave the eulogy for the AmNews’ society editor, Cathy Conners. Year by year, from Alma Carter’s divorce throughout her courtship with Charlie Rangel, Conners had reported the progress of their romance, right up to their 1964 wedding at the Hotel Theresa and after. It was the adoring way that Rangel spoke of his wife that day that made me want to meet her. He was so glowing as he “thanked this beautiful lady from Sugar Hill, for taking pity on a guy from ‘The Valley,’” he said.
In gratitude, I would learn, ever afterward, he gave her the same yellow roses she liked as he had while they were dating.
The young couple lived in the same brownstone house on 132nd Street where Rangel grew up. His grandfather — his mother’s dad — still cooked on the original wood stove there as when he was a boy. As newlyweds, the Rangels transformed his family home into apartments. In time, they moved into a grand apartment nearby at Lenox Terrace. It had been formed for the previous resident, Rev. Eugene Callender of the Church of the Master, by combining two units. As the Rangels’ residence, it was featured in my 2003 book “Style and Grace: African Americans at Home.”
Because of New York’s multitudes from disparate places, Rangel’s friend, Mayor David Dinkins, liked to call the city a marvelous mosaic. Such vast numbers of immigrants and their descendants live here. Rangel’s father was an immigrant from Puerto Rico, so the church for his funeral was a poignant choice. Back in the 1920s, more than a decade before the congressman served as an altar boy there, Blacks who wished to worship or attend school in Black Harlem at St. Aloysius’ Church were told, “Your church is St. Charles Borromeo, on 141st Street.”
Michael Henry Adams photos
Flag-draped casket of Congressman Charles B. Rangel. 
Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and New York AG Leticia James. 
New York AG Leticia James. 
Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. 
Londel Davis of Londel’s Restaurant. 
Bill Clinton speaks of Rangel’s support and loyalty. 
Congregation signs their condolences. 
State Senator Cordell Cleare at cathedral entrance. 
Pamela Green-Perkins, widow of Councilmember and State Senator Bill Perkins. 
Laurent Delly displays order of service. 
Cordell Cleare comforts a constituent. 
Cordell Cleare (right) and Pamela Green-Perkins. 
Attendants of Rangel’s funeral mass dispersing on Fifth Avenue.
When St. Patrick’s Cathedral began in 1858, its Irish immigrant parishioners were generally regarded with the same sort of contempt as African Americans. Escaping the devastating Potato Famine, although mostly poor, they were determined to sacrifice to build the most majestic and imposing church the city had ever seen. For them, building a cathedral to the glory of God was an act of defiance. It symbolized the hardships they would overcome and all they would obtain by way of fortune and political power. Built of white Sing Sing marble, when completed in 1879, it was bigger, grander, and more architecturally distinguished than any other church here; it was all that Irish New Yorkers had hoped for.
(So much was this the case that the city’s old WASP elite were determined to erect something better to manifest their supremacy. The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine was supposed to be the largest gothic-style cathedral in the world and the most magnificent in America — so ambitious and large, it has never been completed, so St. Patrick’s still compares favorably.)
Charlie Rangel was the first African American to chair the House Ways and Means Committee. When, through contrived controversy, he was censured and removed as chairperson, it occurred to me that but for racism, Rangel might have run for the presidency. With his loss, Harlem might never again have a Black congressional representative. Compounding this loss, up and down the line, look what we have instead.