Orig. Negative 1St African American Congress Ny Adam Powell Civil Rights Harlem

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Seller: memorabilia111 ✉️ (808) 100%, Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, Ships to: US & many other countries, Item: 176277815963 ORIG. NEGATIVE 1ST AFRICAN AMERICAN CONGRESS NY ADAM POWELL CIVIL RIGHTS HARLEM. A FANTASTIC 35MM VINTAGE ORIGINAL NEGATIVE OF AFRICAN AMERICAN LEGEND ADAM CLAYTON POWELL Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was an American Baptist pastor and politician who represented the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the United States House of Representatives from 1945 until 1971. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (November 29, 1908 – April 4, 1972) was an American Baptist pastor and politician who represented the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the United States House of Representatives from 1945 until 1971. He was the first African-American to be elected to Congress from New York, as well as the first from any state in the Northeast. Re-elected for nearly three decades, Powell became a powerful national politician of the Democratic Party, and served as a national spokesman on civil rights and social issues. He also urged United States presidents to support emerging nations in Africa and Asia as they gained independence after colonialism.


POWELL, Adam Clayton, Jr., a Representative from New York; born in New Haven, Conn., November 29, 1908; attended the public schools of New York City; graduated from Colgate University, Hamilton, N.Y., 1930; graduated from Columbia University, New York, N.Y., 1932; graduated from Shaw University, Raleigh, N.C., 1934; ordained minister; member of the New York, N.Y., city council, 1941; newspaper publisher and editor; journalist; instructor, Columbia University Extension School, 1932-1940; cofounder of the National Negro Congress; member of the New York state, Consumer Division, Office of Price Administration, 1942-1944; member of the Manhattan Civilian Defense 1942-1945; elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-ninth and to the eleven succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1945-February 28, 1967); excluded from membership in the Ninetieth Congress pursuant to H.Res. 278, on February 28, 1967; chairman, Committee on Education and Labor (Eighty-seventh through Eighty-ninth Congresses); elected as a Democrat to the Ninetieth Congress, by special election, to fill the vacancy caused by his exclusion but did not appear to be sworn in; reelected to the succeeding Congress (April 11, 1967-January 3, 1971); unsuccessful candidate for renomination to the Ninety-second Congress in 1970; died on April 4, 1972, in Miami, Fla.; cremated and ashes scattered over South Bimini in the Bahamas. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (November 29, 1908 – April 4, 1972)[1] was an American Baptist pastor and politician who represented the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the United States House of Representatives from 1945 until 1971. He was the first African-American to be elected to Congress from New York, as well as the first from any state in the Northeast.[2] Re-elected for nearly three decades, Powell became a powerful national politician of the Democratic Party, and served as a national spokesman on civil rights and social issues. He also urged United States presidents to support emerging nations in Africa and Asia as they gained independence after colonialism. In 1961, after 16 years in the House, Powell became chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, the most powerful position held by an African American in Congress. As chairman, he supported the passage of important social and civil rights legislation under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Following allegations of corruption, in 1967 Powell was excluded from his seat by Democratic Representatives-elect of the 90th United States Congress, but he was re-elected and regained the seat in the 1969 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States in Powell v. McCormack. He lost his seat in 1970 to Charles Rangel and retired from electoral politics. Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Career 3 Political career 3.1 New York City Council 3.2 Congress 3.3 Global work 3.4 Committee chairmanship and legislation 3.5 Political controversy 3.5.1 Select House Committee to investigate Representative Adam Clayton Powell 4 Marriage and family 5 Family scandal 6 Death 7 Legacy 8 Representation in other media 9 Works 10 See also 11 Notes 12 References 13 Further reading 13.1 Primary sources 14 External links Early life and education Powell was born in 1908 in New Haven, Connecticut, the second child and only son of Adam Clayton Powell Sr. and Mattie Buster Shaffer, both born poor in Virginia and West Virginia, respectively.[3] His sister Blanche was 10 years older. His parents were of mixed race with African and European ancestry (and, according to his father, American Indian on his mother's side).[3][4] (In his autobiography Adam By Adam, Powell says that his mother had partial German ancestry.)[5] They and their ancestors were classified as mulatto in 19th-century censuses.[4] Powell's paternal grandmother's ancestors had been free persons of color for generations before the Civil War.[4][6][7] By 1908, Powell Sr. had become a prominent Baptist minister, serving as a pastor in Philadelphia, and as lead pastor at a Baptist church in New Haven.[8] Powell Sr. had worked his way out of poverty and through Wayland Seminary, a historically black college, and postgraduate study at Yale University and Virginia Theological Seminary.[9] In the year of his son's birth in New Haven, Powell Sr. was called as the pastor of the prominent Abyssinian Baptist Church in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. He led the church for decades through major expansion, including fundraising for and the construction of an addition to accommodate the increased membership of the congregation during the years of the Great Migration, as many African Americans moved north from the South. That congregation grew to a community of 10,000 persons.[8] Due to his father's achievements, Powell grew up in a wealthy household in New York City. Because of some of his European ancestry, Adam was born with hazel eyes, light skin and blond hair, such that he could pass for white. However, he did not play with that racial ambiguity until college.[4] He attended Townsend Harris High School, then studied at City College of New York before starting at Colgate University as a freshman. The four other African-American students at Colgate at the time were all athletes. For a time, Powell briefly passed as white, using his appearance to escape racial strictures at college. The other black students were dismayed to discover what he had done.[4][10] Encouraged by his father to become a minister, Powell became more serious about his studies at Colgate, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1930.[11] After returning to New York, Powell began his graduate work and in 1931 earned an M.A. in religious education from Columbia University. He became a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first African-American, intercollegiate Greek-lettered fraternity.[12] Later, apparently trying to bolster his black identity, Powell would say that his paternal grandparents were born into slavery.[4] However, his paternal grandmother, Sally Dunning, was at least the third generation of free people of color in her family. In the 1860 census, she is listed as a free mulatto, as were her mother, grandmother, and siblings.[7] Sally never identified the father of Adam Clayton Powell Sr., born in 1865. She appeared to have named her son after her older brother Adam Dunning, listed on the 1860 census as a farmer and the head of their household.[7] In 1867 Sally Dunning married Anthony Bush, a mulatto freedman. All the family members were listed under the surname Dunning in the 1870 census. The family changed its surname to Powell when they moved to Kanawha County, West Virginia, as part of their new life there.[6][13] According to Charles V. Hamilton, a 1991 biographer of Powell, Anthony Bush "decided to take the name Powell as a new identity",[14] and this is how they were recorded in the 1880 census.[15] Adam Jr.'s mother Mattie Buster Shaffer was also of mixed race, with African-American and German ancestry. Her parents had been slaves in Virginia and were freed after the American Civil War. Powell's parents married in West Virginia, where they met. Numerous freedmen had migrated there in the late 19th century for work.[4] Career Powell addressing a citizens' committee mass meeting After ordination, Powell began assisting his father with charitable services at the church and as a preacher. He greatly increased the volume of meals and clothing provided to the needy, and began to learn more about the lives of the working class and poor in Harlem.[citation needed] During the Great Depression in the 1930s, Powell, a handsome and charismatic figure, became a prominent civil rights leader in Harlem. He recounted these experiences in a 1964 interview with Robert Penn Warren for the book Who Speaks for the Negro?.[16] He developed a formidable public following in the community through his crusades for jobs and affordable housing. As chairman of the Coordinating Committee for Employment, Powell used numerous methods of community organizing to bring political pressure on major businesses to open their doors to black employees at professional levels. He organized mass meetings, rent strikes, and public campaigns to force companies, utilities, and Harlem Hospital, which operated in the community, to hire black workers at skill levels higher than the lowest positions, to which they had formerly been restricted by informal discrimination.[16][17] For instance, during the 1939 New York World's Fair, Powell organized a picket line at the Fair's offices in the Empire State Building. As a result, the Fair hired more black employees, increasing their numbers from about 200 to 732.[17] In 1941, Powell led a bus boycott in Harlem, where blacks constituted the majority of passengers but held few of the jobs; the Transit Authority hired 200 black workers and set the precedent for more. Powell also led a fight to have drugstores operating in Harlem hire black pharmacists. He encouraged local residents to shop only where blacks were also hired to work.[17] "Mass action is the most powerful force on earth," Powell once said, adding, "As long as it is within the law, it's not wrong; if the law is wrong, change the law."[citation needed] In 1938, Powell succeeded his father as pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church.[citation needed] In 1942 he founded People's Voice, a newspaper designed for "a progressive African American audience, and it educated and enlightened readers on everything from local gatherings and events to U.S. civil rights issues to the political and economic struggles of the peoples of Africa. Reporters and writers for the papers included influential African Americans such as Powell himself, Powell's sister-in-law and actress Fredi Washington, and journalist Marvel Cooke." It also served as a mouthpiece for his views. After he was elected to Congress in 1944, other people led the paper, but it finally closed in 1948, after being accused of communist connections.[18] Political career New York City Council In 1941, with the aid of New York City's use of the single transferable vote, Powell was elected to the New York City Council as the city's first black Council member.[2] He received 65,736 votes, the third-best total among the six successful Council candidates.[19] Congress In 1944, Powell ran for the United States Congress on a platform of civil rights for African Americans: support for "fair employment practices, and a ban on poll taxes and lynching." Requiring poll taxes for voter registration and voting was a device used by southern states in new constitutions adopted from 1890 to 1908 to disenfranchise most blacks and many poor whites, in order to exclude them from politics.[20][21] Poll taxes in the United States, together with the social and economic intimidation of Jim Crow laws, were maintained in the South into the 1960s to keep blacks excluded from politics and politically powerless. Although often associated with states of the former Confederate States of America, poll taxes were also in place in some northern and western states, including California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Wisconsin.[22] Powell was elected as a Democrat to represent the Congressional District that included Harlem.[23] He was the first black Congressman elected from New York State. As the historian Charles V. Hamilton wrote in his 1992 political biography of Powell, Here was a person who [in the 1940s] would at least 'speak out. '... That would be different ... Many Negroes were angry that no Northern liberals would get up on the floor of Congress and challenge the segregationists. ... Powell certainly promised to do that ...[24] [In] the 1940s and 1950s, he was, indeed, virtually alone ... And precisely because of that, he was exceptionally crucial. In many instances during those earlier times, if he did not speak out, the issue would not have been raised. ... For example, only he could (or would dare to) challenge Congressman Rankin of Mississippi on the House floor in the 1940s for using the word "nigger". He certainly did not change Rankin's mind or behavior, but he gave solace to millions who longed for a little retaliatory defiance.[24] As one of only two black Congressmen (the other being William Levi Dawson)[25] until 1955, Powell challenged the informal ban on black representatives using Capitol facilities previously reserved for white members.[23] He took black constituents to dine with him in the "Whites Only" House restaurant. He clashed with the many segregationists from the South in his party. Since the turn of the 20th century, Southern Democrats had commanded a one-party system, as they had effectively disenfranchised most blacks from voting since the turn of the century and excluded them from the political system through barriers to voter registration and voting. The white Congressmen and Senators controlled all the seats allocated for the total population in the southern states, had established seniority, and commanded many important committee chairs in the House and Senate.[20][26] Powell worked closely with Clarence Mitchell Jr., the representative of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Washington, D.C., to try to gain justice in federal programs. Biographer Hamilton described the NAACP as "the quarterback that threw the ball to Powell, who, to his credit, was more than happy to catch and run with it."[24] He developed a strategy known as the "Powell Amendments". "On bill after bill that proposed federal expenditures, Powell would offer 'our customary amendment', requiring that federal funds be denied to any jurisdiction that maintained segregation; Liberals would be embarrassed, Southern politicians angered."[24] This principle would later become integrated into Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Powell was also willing to act independently; in 1956, he broke party ranks and supported President Dwight D. Eisenhower for re-election, saying the civil rights plank in the Democratic Party platform was too weak. In 1958, he survived a determined effort by the Tammany Hall Democratic Party machine in New York to oust him in the primary election. In 1960, Powell, hearing of planned civil rights marches at the Democratic Convention, which could embarrass the party or candidate, threatened to accuse Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. of having a homosexual relationship with Bayard Rustin unless the marches were cancelled. Rustin, one of King's political advisers, was an openly gay man. King agreed to cancel the planned events and Rustin resigned from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.[27] Global work Powell with President Lyndon B. Johnson in the Oval Office, 1965. Powell speaking at a Human Rights Symposium in 1970. Powell also paid attention to the issues of developing nations in Africa and Asia, making trips overseas. He urged presidential policymakers to pay attention to nations seeking independence from colonial powers and support aid to them. During the Cold War, many of them sought neutrality between the United States and the Soviet Union. He made speeches on the House Floor to celebrate the anniversaries of the independence of nations such as Ghana, Indonesia, and Sierra Leone.[23] In 1955, against the State Department's advice, Powell attended the Asian–African Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, as an observer. He made a positive international impression in public addresses that balanced his concerns of his nation's race relations problems with a spirited defense of the United States as a whole against Communist criticisms. Powell returned to the United States to a warm bipartisan reception for his performance, and he was invited to meet with President Dwight D. Eisenhower.[citation needed] With this influence, Powell suggested to the State Department that the current manner of competing with the Soviet Union in the realm of fine arts such as international symphony orchestra and ballet company tours was ineffective. Instead, he advised that the United States should focus on the popular arts, such as sponsoring international tours of famous jazz musicians, which could draw attention to an indigenous American art form and featured musicians who often performed in mixed race bands. The State Department approved the idea. The first such tour with Dizzy Gillespie proved to be an outstanding success abroad and prompted similarly popular tours featuring other musicians for years.[28] Committee chairmanship and legislation In 1961, after 15 years in Congress, Powell advanced to chairman of the powerful United States House Committee on Education and Labor. In this position, he presided over federal social programs for minimum wage and Medicaid (established later under Johnson); he expanded the minimum wage to include retail workers; and worked for equal pay for women; he supported education and training for the deaf, nursing education, and vocational training; he led legislation for standards for wages and work hours; as well as for aid for elementary and secondary education, and school libraries.[23] Powell's committee proved extremely effective in enacting major parts of President Kennedy's "New Frontier" and President Johnson's "Great Society" social programs and the War on Poverty. It successfully reported to Congress "49 pieces of bedrock legislation", as President Johnson put it in an May 18, 1966, letter congratulating Powell on the fifth anniversary of his chairmanship.[29] Powell was instrumental in passing legislation that made lynching a federal crime, as well as bills that desegregated public schools. He challenged the Southern practice of charging Blacks a poll tax to vote. Poll taxes for federal elections were prohibited by the 24th Amendment, passed in 1964.[30] Voter registration and electoral practices were not changed substantially in most of the South until after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which provided federal oversight of voter registration and elections, and enforcement of the constitutional right to vote. In some areas where discrimination was severe, such as Mississippi, it took years for African Americans to register and vote in numbers related to their proportion in the population, but they have since maintained a high rate of registration and voting.[31] Political controversy By the mid-1960s, Powell was increasingly being criticized for mismanaging his committee's budget, taking trips abroad at public expense, and missing meetings of his committee.[2] When under scrutiny by the press and other members of Congress for personal conduct—he had taken two young women at government expense with him on overseas travel—he responded: I wish to state very emphatically... that I will always do just what every other Congressman and committee chairman has done and is doing and will do."[24] Opponents led criticism in his District, where his refusal to pay a 1963 slander judgment made him subject to arrest; he also spent increasing amounts of time in Florida.[2] Select House Committee to investigate Representative Adam Clayton Powell In January 1967, the House Democratic Caucus stripped Powell of his committee chairmanship. A series of hearings on Powell's misconduct had been held by the 89th Congress in December 1966 that produced the evidence that the House Democratic Caucus cited in taking this action. A Select House Committee was established upon the House's reconvening for the 90th Congress to further investigate Powell's misconduct so as to determine if he should be allowed to take his seat. This committee was appointed by the Speaker of the House. Its chairman was Emanuel Celler of New York and its members were James C. Corman, Claude Pepper, John Conyers, Jr., Andrew Jacobs, Jr., Arch A. Moore, Jr., Charles M. Teague, Clark MacGregor, and Vernon W. Thompson. This committee's inquiry centered on the following issues: "1. Mr. Powell's age, citizenship, and inhabitancy [sic]; 2. The status of legal proceedings to which Mr. Powell was a party in the State of New York and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico with particular reference to the instances in which he has been held in contempt of court; and 3. Matters of Mr. Powell's alleged official misconduct since January 3, 1961."[32] Hearings of the Select House Committee to investigate Rep. Adam Clayton Powell were held over three days in February 1967. Powell was in attendance only on the first day of these hearings, February 8. Neither he nor his legal counsel requested that the select committee summon any witnesses. According to the official Congressional report on these committee hearings, Powell and his counsel's official position was that "the Committee had no authority to consider the misconduct charges."[32] The select committee found that Powell met residency requirements for Congressional representatives under the Constitution, but that Powell had asserted an unconstitutional immunity from earlier rulings against him in criminal cases tried in the New York State Supreme Court. The committee also found that Powell had committed numerous acts of financial misconduct. These included appropriation of Congressional funds for his own personal use, the use of funds meant for the House Education and Labor Committee to pay the salary of a housekeeper at his property on Bimini in The Bahamas, purchasing airline tickets for himself, family, and friends from the funds of the House Education and Labor Committee, as well as making false reports on expenditures of foreign currency while head of the House Education and Labor Committee.[32] The members of the Select Committee had different opinions on the fate of Powell's seat. Most notably, Claude Pepper was strongly in favor of recommending that Powell not be seated at all, while John Conyers, Jr., the only African American Representative on the Select Committee felt that any punishment beyond severe censure was inappropriate. In fact, in the committee's official report, Conyers asserted that Powell's conduct during the two investigations of his conduct were not contrary to the dignity of the House of Representatives, as had been suggested by the investigation. Conyers also suggested that cases of misconduct brought before the House of Representatives never exceed censure. In the end, the Select House Committee to investigate Rep. Adam Clayton Powell recommended that Powell be seated but stripped of his seniority and forced to pay a fine of $40,000, citing article I, section 5, clause 2 of the Constitution, which gives each house of Congress the ability to punish members for improper conduct.[32] The full House refused to seat him until completion of the investigation. Powell urged his supporters to "keep the faith, baby," while the investigation was under way. On March 1, the House voted 307 to 116 to exclude him, despite the recommendation of the Select Committee. Powell said, "On this day, the day of March in my opinion, is the end of the United States of America as the land of the free and the home of the brave."[33] Powell won the Special Election to fill the vacancy caused by his exclusion, receiving 86% of the vote.[34] But he did not take his seat, as he was filing a separate suit. He sued in Powell v. McCormack to retain his seat. In November 1968, Powell was re-elected. On January 3, 1969, he was seated as a member of the 91st Congress, but he was fined $25,000 and denied seniority.[35] In June 1969, in Powell v. McCormack, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the House had acted unconstitutionally when it excluded Powell, as he had been duly elected by his constituents.[36] Powell's increasing absenteeism was noted by constituents, which contributed, in June 1970, to his defeat in the Democratic primary for reelection to his seat by Charles B. Rangel.[2] Powell failed to garner enough signatures to get on the November ballot as an Independent, and Rangel won that (and following) general elections.[2] In the fall of 1970, Powell moved to his retreat on Bimini in The Bahamas, also resigning as minister at the Abyssinian Baptist Church. Marriage and family In 1933, Powell married Isabel Washington (1908–2007), an African-American singer and nightclub entertainer. Like Powell, she was of mixed race. She was the sister of actress Fredi Washington. Powell adopted Washington's son, Preston, from her first marriage.[37] After their divorce, in 1945, Powell married the singer Hazel Scott. They had a son named Adam Clayton Powell III. In the early 21st century, Adam Clayton Powell III became Vice Provost for Globalization at the University of Southern California.[38][39] Powell divorced again, and in 1960 married Yvette Flores Diago from Puerto Rico. They had a son, whom they named Adam Clayton Powell Diago, using the mother's surname as a second surname, according to Hispanic tradition.[39] In 1980, this son changed his name to Adam Clayton Powell IV (dropping "Diago" from his name) when he moved to the mainland of the United States from Puerto Rico to attend Howard University.[a][39] Adam Clayton Powell IV, also known as A.C. Powell IV, was elected to the New York City Council in 1991 in a special election; he served for two terms.[40] He also was elected as a New York state Assemblyman (D-East Harlem) for three terms and had a son named Adam Clayton Powell V.[39] In 1994, and again in 2010, Adam Clayton Powell IV unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Rep. Charles B. Rangel for the Democratic nomination in his father's former congressional district.[39] Family scandal In 1967, a U.S. Congressional committee subpoenaed Yvette Diago, the former third wife of Powell Jr. and the mother of Adam Clayton Powell IV. They were investigating potential "theft of state funds" related to her having been on Powell Jr.'s payroll but doing no work.[41][42] Yvette Diago admitted to the committee that she had been on the Congressional payroll of her former husband, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., from 1961 until 1967, although she had moved back to Puerto Rico in 1961.[42][43] As reported by Time magazine, Yvette Diago had continued living in Puerto Rico and "performed no work at all," yet was kept on the payroll. Her salary was increased to $20,578 and she was paid until January 1967, when she was exposed and fired.[41][42][43][44] Death In April 1972, Powell became gravely ill and was flown to a Miami hospital from his home in Bimini. He died there on April 4, 1972, at the age of 63, from acute prostatitis, according to contemporary newspaper accounts. After his funeral at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, his son, Adam III, poured his ashes from a plane over the waters of Bimini.[1] Legacy Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building at Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and 125th Street in Harlem. Seventh Avenue north of Central Park through Harlem has been renamed as Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard.[45] One of the landmarks along this street is the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building,[46] named for Powell in 1983.[47] In addition, two New York schools were named after him, PS 153, at 1750 Amsterdam Ave., and a middle school, IS 172 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. School of Social Justice, at 509 W. 129th St. It closed in 2009. In 2011, the new Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Paideia Academy opened in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood.[48] Investigations into Powell's misconduct have been cited as an impetus for a permanent ethics committee in the House of Representatives as well as a permanent code of conduct for House Members and their staff.[49] Representation in other media Powell was the subject of the 2002 cable television film Keep the Faith, Baby, starring Harry Lennix as Powell and Vanessa Williams as his second wife, jazz pianist Hazel Scott.[50] The film debuted on February 17, 2002, on premium cable network Showtime.[50] It garnered three NAACP Image Award nominations for Outstanding Television Movie, Outstanding Actor in a Television Movie (Lennix), and Outstanding Actress in a TV Movie (Williams). It won two National Association of Minorities in Cable (NAMIC) Vision Awards for Best Drama and Best Actor in a Television Film (Lennix), the International Press Association's Best Actress in a Television Film Award (Williams), and Reel.com's Best Actor in a Television Film (Lennix).[51] The film's producers were Geoffrey L. Garfield, Powell IV's long-time campaign manager; Monty Ross, a confidant of Spike Lee; son Adam Clayton Powell III; and Hollywood veteran Harry J. Ufland. The film was written by Art Washington and directed by Doug McHenry.[50] Powell is portrayed by Giancarlo Esposito in the 2019 Epix cable series Godfather of Harlem.[52] Powell is featured by Paul Deo in his 2017 Harlem mural Planet Harlem. Works (1945) Marching Blacks, An Interpretive History of the Rise of the Black Common Man (1962) The New Image in Education: A Prospectus for the Future by the Chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor (1967) Keep the Faith, Baby! (1971) Adam by Adam: The Autobiography of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. See also Biography portal Adam Clayton Powell, a 1989 documentary film J. Raymond Jones List of African-American United States representatives List of federal political scandals in the United States List of United States representatives expelled, censured, or reprimanded Timeline of the civil rights movement Unseated members of the United States Congress POWELL, Adam Clayton, Jr., a Representative from New York; born in New Haven, Conn., November 29, 1908; attended the public schools of New York City; graduated from Colgate University, Hamilton, N.Y., 1930; graduated from Columbia University, New York, N.Y., 1932; graduated from Shaw University, Raleigh, N.C., 1934; ordained minister; member of the New York, N.Y., city council, 1941; newspaper publisher and editor; journalist; instructor, Columbia University Extension School, 1932-1940; cofounder of the National Negro Congress; member of the New York state, Consumer Division, Office of Price Administration, 1942-1944; member of the Manhattan Civilian Defense 1942-1945; elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-ninth and to the eleven succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1945-February 28, 1967); excluded from membership in the Ninetieth Congress pursuant to H.Res. 278, on February 28, 1967; chairman, Committee on Education and Labor (Eighty-seventh through Eighty-ninth Congresses); elected as a Democrat to the Ninetieth Congress, by special election, to fill the vacancy caused by his exclusion but did not appear to be sworn in; reelected to the succeeding Congress (April 11, 1967-January 3, 1971);  This has been a week of a wide range of activities recalling the history of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the legendary Harlem congressman who would have turned 100 years old on Saturday. A number of politicians, journalists and scholars will gather at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture on Saturday to discuss the legacy of Powell, the first African-American elected to Congress from New York. Powell, who died in 1972, served in Congress from 1945 until 1971 and was the major black legislator of his era. At several points over the weekend, the film “Keep the Faith, Baby,” a drama based on the life of Powell that was broadcast on Showtime in 2002, will be shown at the Schomburg. “I think that people are still fascinated by him because he was a person who was a leader in the black community not just in New York, but all across the country,” said the congressman’s son, Adam Clayton Powell IV, an assemblyman representing East Harlem. “He had the ability to look at the nation’s white power structure in the eye and tell him exactly what he thought,” the younger Mr. Powell said. (His half-brother, Adam Clayton Powell III, is a vice provost at the University of Southern California.) “He was the blueprint for what all black elected officials should be: he was bold and passionate.” Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was best known in his role as chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor. He was a leading figure in passage of the backbone of the much of the social legislation of the Kennedy and Johnson presidencies. He helped steer the passage of the minimum wage bill, the Manpower Development and Training Act, the antipoverty bill, and bills providing federal money for student loans and for public libraries. Of course, the congressman had his troubles, and they made headlines throughout the country. He was criticized with increasing frequency for mismanagement of his committee’s finances and traveling at public expense. He spent a good deal of time outside the district and faced a series of troubles for his refusal to pay a judgment that resulted from a slander suit. In 1970, he was defeated in the Democratic primary by an assemblyman named Charles B. Rangel, who has represented northern Manhattan in Congress ever since. (Mr. Rangel, too, has had his own ethical problems in recent months.) But Mr. Rangel attended a celebration honoring his predecessor’s 100th birthday last weekend at the Waldorf-Astoria. “Mr. Rangel has been very gracious, and he’s going to come by the events at the Schomberg on Saturday,” Assemblyman Powell said. (In fact, the younger Mr. Powell challenged Mr. Rangel for his father’s old Congressional seat in 1994.) Saturday’s discussion follows a week of other activities honoring Powell, including an event at City Hall sponsored by the City Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus and another at which Gov. David A. Paterson presented a proclamation in his memory. Assemblyman Powell said that he considered his father to have been a trailblazer. “When I look at the election of David Dinkins as mayor, with I see David Paterson as governor and when I see Barack Obama as president-elect,” Mr. Powell said, “I think that in some way my father set the stage for them.” PL JWLLL: You know what the trouble frith that kind ob books?( Cr: %Tha t s that? POv ;, LL: '1'lmes are movinm so fast that they're outdated. icy the time thleT o tihrou~h the o mocess of nublication, whichis usually six mofths, they're outdated, and Silverman really a.x as _aalco~rn X says, he knowsx~x probably as much about the black revolution as any; wh'ite man. dut heis books, I can t" l1 by the way footnotes nue pad me in thzere in / ,tira~ byr puttin; me in in footnoes, ani othzer p-eople infootnotes, heo :s desperately tryin._ to rcublish it, to try to u. date it. 3: I doni't C want this to be topical in thiat sense . I wvant, many of the personali_ ties tnat .re wiaix a~vilr.ule nor, as It were, ?^111 re'lui.n 1iym'ortar"!t, ?w~_: i tn vr;,ing ____ , altilOU )h 5Oil ilea: nalmes ,ill acc ear. SUS k x ti_s, 1t X74f x wo't be thire : onths, before thre books' out, four, so things will chanp'e, but at least thequality of personality will remain imoortant. PUVJLLL: I think it's 301nF, to be a very explosive summer, )anzd so if it's out in three or four m.onths, gonna be ,;: '1e 11, the rnahazine will be out sooner of coursed, the magazine will be out _____ ay I nlung ahead? PUW LR-:: Yes sir. -L aq; On the telephone the o heyday', you said to me, that You thought tha~t the old leadership by, and lar 'e, w~as finished, the old line org anization leadersh ip was finishedi. Igo you m'ind exoandiniL drat, :lease sir. P ;] mILL: -Fell, _T tliins o~s rtost old ladies, in all n~overients, they have rnot kept Hace w;ithr the times, as I said in tale sumlmer centl , ± x let's trace the birth ofan idea. I t's born, it's rar~.iaant radicalismi; it then becomles pro,;ressiveisrn, then becomes liberalise,, then it becomnes moderate, then it becomes conse rvative, tnen it becomes outrmoded, anti then it's sone. :end the old ldadership la.s not brou; ,it fortha, new~ ideas, so the i deastheyl had, have now^ becorme > -- outmoded. ihat W do you concotve the function of -your organization, Pu~rT1L: 'irst, I aio not belong; to iidi1. I saidthis repeatedly. I have only :participated in one of its, reetin as, at the ;w ritten request of the chairman, ir. Landry of Chica- o, andc in the letter hre lx. asked me to come and particin ate as "a consultant", so as the ;;rand old :man of the black revolution, becuase I'll be sixty years old. in four Years, and these are all kids in their twenties, they' re very fewa in the thirties, even, I w;as thiere as a ee~e4 - cee a x consultant, and I gave thern certain definite advice, based on my years of experience, because I led the first successfull no~rviolent campai~n amonst Nvegroes in the United '1ates, for 11 years, t_.-o from 193O,xa 19)41, and I quite in k~fx ' 41, because there were no more c x worlds to conquer, al uiiea t, but don' =3- don't mean that. vaow, we have new worlds to conquer. he northiern school deseg~regation, the housing and the retraininr~ of older Aegeroes for thisnew world, automation, and the training of our drop-outs and MsrP# push-outs for employment, and upngrading, and political patronage co:1OensuafO with the :Jo =;ro's belance of ow?"er, in the bi; ley electors 1 states. ,: In the nuestion of most revolutionatvx social cnianres, in those situations, there is usually a drive toward centralization of lealrshio. OL'.I'iLL: bhat's correct. ) : Almost always happens. That has not inapnened tothis p int. Pu':bLi: I t's only onevear old . 1xs It's only one year old. I think there's donna be a polarization . I tnini: that these ?oole who belonp;to a ACTi' may bed the catalytic agent in the oolarization. Right now all we Y a hear a x among the demonstration leadosrs here, i s a dissatisfaction, wvhich is not constructive, of the old leadership. :how, with a catalytic agent such as AC'i', there might be oroduced a o olarization k ak so we w^ill have the twiro poles. igicht now r we uo not have thepoles. ,Jric x Severeid, by the waay, I have it over there, commented in a column, that in the ;aiexgx rWegro revoltuion the fight is not between the conse rvatives and the liberals, the fight is betw"reen the liberals and the extremists. q: W ell, how do you place a ACT in that spectrum? -4- PO i1LL: As a cataly tic agent, a. group omkr fumbling around , tryinr- to find somethingto hand; its hat on, definitely stating beforethe press, in ' iashi;,;ton, tnat they wrere not a. novi organization, they got word that we want to be a clearing' hzouse. And I said -- wvht y ou should ix± do is to mlake your umlbrella big enough to include everyone . And I pointed at A alcolm? X wnith whom I disagree, x i x± cax ideolof ially, but wh-o I have great admiiration for some of his iiisi hts. ire has somle great insi 'nts . nowvell; That's right, fivlat's righ t, I'rm ,:lad y ou said that. I donl't a. ree w ith thte ilaclk 'usl _i -over.,ent, don't bolievein s maation, so I did something -"1icn1 sou±lds ±x like semantics, before the AC T. program, whichr they ate uo. I said -- let's don't fight i'te°ation. I said, -- let's sto, the fi: ht. Let's 1iht i b x for desegrep .t io'i, and Once w',e deSegre jtae, theni let eachl onle "O the Tray tey way thley w ant to, the mlac« nationalists rant to g;o for seoaration, let them _~o. I'm an inte-;rationist. You mnai-.e talc s'.mar dis;tinctio.m. then between into ~ration7 and equality. ?O hAiLL: Th'iat's righlt. ) : and enuatlity, ,you take as a prior condi ton POJE11L: Dlesegregation now , then after that, let each one Inldulge in the luxury of whatever nlhilosonhical point fo view tnrey have. -5- : ut deal ri t e ?:latter of first, civil rights aenroach, the t. i.P.C. apo roacol, POii.L: . o, re're not even concerned ai b the civil ri;nts. '1T'is is very irmoportant. If the Civil Rights mill is passed, in its entirefty w"ithout any waterin' dowrn arpendrnents, i t would no taffect tile black revolution in the Dorth one bit . f :d: oould affect the south. t 1'jLL: Itw~ould affect the south. You see, theblack revolution is two-nroned. In the south it's middle class, and Lpper class D e :roes, it's the preacher, the teacher, thestudent, and they're fir'htinr: for the golf courses and tale sw rirnminFr ;pools, and the restaurants ridght to vote. and the hotels and the es-e- lee e. hose are toe tw:o priary thrusts. hut w"hen you leave the south, where only one third of the oeeroes nor lives, and come on into .ashin;ton, here youhave a \ revolution of the masses. .got toe classes. And that's the r~voltltion a 4--around the country. Arnd that revolution is interested in schools, housing, and ,jobs. And the Civil i= i.Kts Dill Twill not help that at all. T: I tw-Till not clearly. In a direct way. gut POUILLL: I twrill create a ciirmate. rill create a climate. q; Yes, the climates is important. One muestionsabout hs distinction oetween leadershin and masses in the Ik big northern cities. This distinction leads to speculation as to how leadership cal control, what's the relation of leadership to that kind of a mass based movement. -6- in POWLLL: There is no leadershio/ rllheold line and the new, that can control the masses. One of the shocking statistics, is that if you take theso-called i3ig Six, ofthe Ci~ril ights Organizations, they don't havebut 900,000 members. S Andmany of those are white. So you have 19 million black peoople, who are uncommitted by loyalty to thecivil rightsmovement. ' : T. 1hat is the probiem of leadership then, you have this vast mass of people, many of them deprived and dissatisfied, and angry. 1hat's the problem of leadership there. POYJhLL: The problem of leadership is as follows: I have had '.ere in vashigton, two sumit meetinqs, they were not recorded by the press, a 4 e -- a-P --- although it wras released to the press. iere I think isthequichocst w ray to r-et into the heart of the masses, and if I wasn't so extremely busy with this tremendous committee I have, that nandles 40' of the domestic leg;islation in the United States, I weuld do N 1 I asked the £3ureau of Census to give me the names of national or ' aniztioiisoaa¢ that were black led, clack membership, black financed. And they ,;ave it to me. t'hey grave me t ne .iasons, thne lks, tie , the doctors, the lawayers, tie national Assn. of Colored Tloren's Clubs, and alto'etiier thereare 51 in the Jureau of Census, national iaegro orv;anizatijons, totally lie ro, total> ; financed by ilegroes, which had a membership x of 12,100,000. idow of course there are many duplications. The church for instance, theianti st Church, the ti..f.L. cnurch, these have not yet been b¢ouLnt into the black revolution on a organizational basis, and that's hwere your miass is. So if someone could ever form a council of negro orgazniations, they'd be getting right into the heart of the black masses. 'This was tried by A. Philip Randolph years ago in -7- Cnica'o, and: they found the f$ inational J1er;ro Cong ress, and the commies took that over. Q: Tw o things stem from that situation. that you're describing. One is that wre knowa there isno soci al change '.rit noutpowtier inuolved. 'That is the nature of the threat of this ower. Poer ;jeans a threat. ;That is the naturo of this 'Dower and it te nature of' the threat: b i rnounts. t..nLL: -- '~a- - e--Threat to w homl? ?: i'itreat to the status quo. 'Ot"JLL: Allri'ot, as I said in mry speech i n h arvard -rida , aind at Indiana U'niversi ty last nonday,, the whrYi teran is rif raid today. iie' a af'raid because all of' the intrurents of' conitainm.ent, of containing; the Cerro in a second class status, hre had a cartel. ae o onoroolized t hese. -e :eau a cartel, a monopoly, ____national uardi, tyre policeD forca, electric cattle prods and the nunlerical tsuperiorit-r. JAll of a dudden Airmin harn exploded. And the "demonstrations began all over the country. And these demonstrations \ based on~ the of nonviolence. rAnd 'iou cannot sbon nonviolence writh violonco . '"o the w"hite nowrr structrue nowA stands aghast . .4ondlrin;' .rinat to do, in the face of these kids rollinr° out in the streets, these people marching,, w-ith nothing but x~dWx "'Jo shall overcome Is o:re day ." .That's is, the technique ofnonviolence is a decisive factorin iJegro power. - 8- PO'WELL: The day the :iegrro changes from nonviolence toxisck3 violence, he is finished, and thehlack revolution , has to stare; all over amain. at some future date . ' n: owr there are some Negroes in responsible posit ion , even ____organizations, that profess nonviolence, w hich think: _____ore other platform, w."hici speak of _____of violence. 'i'he threat of violence, has uncontained _____(WiAPh~ XSX HECORDLIG IS COSiPLL'TSLY W JV~iiIivC~ -- S'JI 'CniLS 3ACK" 1 X /lWiJ "t+O51Ki i~'i ,L ,- 3-3/4 sm eed to 1-7/8 seed or some~rhere in betwaeen -- ) - - ~ : -9- '< : Well, back to ourtopic of leadrship and the centralizationof leadership, it's always true aoparently, that any competition for powrer, or competition for oolicy, you atpcax find the crisis of over-reaching, entering very soon. One person promises more, offers more,, y , more andmore radical solutions. This conforms to expectations as well as to personal , but this carries dangers. ihow much danger do you see now. powell: I don'tsee any danger of that at all, exopet in the ranks of those self-proclaimed leadersb who are tr-ins; to move un the ladder, by virture of these prorises, because tjey haveno other method of moving up the ladder. : dlow.a did you e e -- resoOnd to hev. alamison's now well-adveritised statement, that the schools could be w !recked if not conformin, to the tine tableof integration. POTJLL: the schools could be wr rocked? ^a; Should be, the public schools should be destroyed if they don'tconform to his time table of integration. POWELL: Jell I don't subscribe tothat no mope than I can subscribe to the wrhite segregationist destroyhing the public school system ratherthan obey the Supreme Courtlecision. : hey are prallel. POWELL: Tl'hey are exactly parallel. -10- . In the area of over-reach, flow what about bhe f stall-in. Is that an over-reach clearly. rPO;,ELL. Ydes, it's an overreach, butT :vas in favor of the stall-in, not knourind° anythling about the techniques, nor the orqani zation, w^hatsoever, because to ,le, any form of denonstation t hiats nonviolent, necessarily quickens the th inl-ink; of people in tine -Dower structure. -1":ow, here's what I'n re -tt i nm at . In terms of nonviolent tlem onst~a tions, is there a distinction betwveen the leg;itimate and the illegitimate. ihat i s , thlose w-i Ua different k~inds of social reference. r±at is, the stalls ____is one thin e, Q ick etin;. or sittin;' i n or '0., LL _o i don't thinlc there is any Xirk diff erence, sa'._li no LirenYt'rce;, a; 3XT' o.;rm OrI O nonviolencs, '1:s its C2 effect fe . ii v~i11C° ilas anl Dffect too Of courSe . PO',ar anl violence does not acconaolish any satis'actor;;y solution -- our civi 1 w"ar, our rro xid -war, rmakcing_ the w
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