I'd like to send this letter by <a href=" http://iorarua.com/iorarua/index.php?writing-discursive-essays#shawl ">essay about setting goals</a> The first black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and first black secretary of state, Powell says America has come a long way toward racial equality 50 years after Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. Powell recalled being refused service when trying to buy a hamburger before the Civil Rights Act of 1964.