[3] In 1869, Powell moved to Virginia and worked as a principal in an African American school in Leesburg.
[2] Powell was appointed as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary[4] to Haiti by President William McKinley in 1897.
[5] Like many of the other ministers before him, Powell was the American diplomat in Haiti as well as the chargé d'affaires in the Dominican Republic, still officially called Santo Domingo by the U.S.
There was a plot to assassinate him during a staged fight and Powell reported after he retired that he was shot twice while in office.
[6] After the end of Powell's term, he returned to Camden and became a writer for the Philadelphia Tribune, an African American newspaper.