About Me
Rev Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (November 29, 1908 – April 4, 1972), American politician, was the first African American to become a powerful figure in the United States Congress. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives from Harlem in 1945, and became chair of the Education and Labor Committee in 1961. His tenure as committee chairman saw the passage of important social legislation.His father, Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. was a Baptist minister and headed the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York. His paternal grandfather was white, as were several of his mother's ancestors. He was educated at public schools, the City College of New York and Colgate University. He received an MA degree in religious education from Columbia University in 1931. According to contemporary newspaper accounts, Powell died of acute prostatitis.During the Depression years, Powell, a handsome and charismatic figure, became a prominent civil rights leader in the Harlem area of Manhattan and developed a formidable public following in Harlem community through his crusades for jobs and housing. He organized mass meetings, rent strikes and public campaigns, forcing companies and utilities, Harlem Hospital and the 1939 World's Fair either to hire or to begin promoting black employees. One of his crowning achievements was his leading of boycotts against stores on 125th Street because of their job discrimination.In 1937 he succeeded his father as pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church. In 1941 he was elected to the New York City Council as the city's first Black council representative with the aid of New York City's use of the Single Transferable Vote.[1]"Mass action is the most powerful force on earth," Mr. Powell once said, adding, "As long as it is within the law, it's not wrong if the law is wrong, change the law." According to analysts, he landed in Washington as Congressman armed with a mandate from the grassroots to make a difference.He passed legislation that made lynching a federal crime and bills that desegregated public schools and the U.S. military. He challenged the Southern practice of charging Blacks a poll tax to vote, and stopped racist congressmen from saying the word "nigger" in sessions of Congress.His first wife was nightclub entertainer Isabelle Washington (sister of actress Fredi Washington). Together they adopted a son, Preston.Powell and his second wife, the singer Hazel Scott, had a son, Adam Clayton Powell III. ACP III is a visiting professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California.Powell and his third wife, Puerto Rican Yvette Diago Powell, had a son Adam Clayton Powell Diago. This son changed his name to Adam Clayton Powell IV (and started confusion because his nephew, who is only 8 years younger than he, already had the name of ACP IV) when he became a member of the New York State Assembly.ACP Jr's second son, ACP III, named his son Adam Clayton Powell IV.Powell was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans.In June of 1970 he was defeated in the Democratic primary by Charles B. Rangel, who has represented the area ever since. Powell failed to get on the ballot for the November election as an independent. He resigned as minister at the Abyssinian Baptist Church and moved to Bimini. In April of 1972 he became gravely ill and was flown to a Miami hospital. He died there on April 4, at the age of 63.Powell was the subject of the 2002 cable television film KEEP THE FAITH, BABY starring Harry Lennix as Powell and Vanessa L. Williams as his second wife, jazz pianist Hazel Scott. The film debuted on February 17, 2002 on premium cable network Showtime and was a production of Showtime and Paramount Network Television. It garnered three NAACP Image Award nominations for Outstanding Television Movie, Outstanding Television Actor in a TV Movie (Lennix) and Outstanding Television Actress in a TV Movie (Williams). It won two NAMIC Vision Awards (cable executives) for Best Drama and Best Actor (Lennix). Williams also earned a Best Actress in a TV Movie Golden Satellite Award from the International Press Association. The film was the brainchild of the Hon. Adam Clayton Powell, IV and his campaign manager Geoffrey L. Garfield, who lead the team as Producer. Powell, IV and his half brother Adam, III, were credited as Co-Producers of the biopic.
