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. As chair of the House of Representatives Labor and Education Committee, he presided over important social legislation during the 1960s, but his career was ended by a corruption scandal.
Powell was born in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. was a Baptist minister, and headed the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York. 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.
During the Depression years Powell, a handsome and charismatic figure, became a prominent civil rights leader in the Harlem area of Manhattan. 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. In 1936 he succeeded his father as pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church. In 1941 he was elected to the New York City Council.
In 1944 Powell was elected as a Democrat to the House of Representatives, representing a district covering Harlem. He was the first black Congressman fron New York, and the first from any Northern state other than Illinois. As one of only two black Congressmen, Powell challenged the informal ban on black representatives using Capitol facilities reserved for members only. He took black constituents to dine with him in the "whites only" House restaurant. He clashed with the many segregationists in his own party.
In 1956 Powell broke party ranks and supported Dwight D. Eisenhower for reelection, saying that the Democratic platform's civil rights plank was too weak. In 1958 he survived a determined effort by the Tammany Hall machine to oust him in the Democratic primary election. In 1961, after 15 years in Congress, Powell became chairman of the powerful Education and Labor Committee. In this position he presided over federal programs for minimum wage increases, education and training for the deaf, vocational training and standards for wages and work hours, as well as aid to elementary and secondary education.
By the mid 1960s Powell was being increasingly criticised for mismanagement of the committee budget, taking trips abroad at public expense and missing sittings of his committee. He was also under fire in his district, where his refusal to pay a slander judgment made him subject to arrest. He spent increasing amounts of time in Florida and displayed his wealth more than was wise for a Congressman representing a poor district.
In January 1967, following allegations that Powell had misappropriated Committee funds for his personal use and other corruption allegations, the House Democratic Caucus stripped Powell of his committee chairmanship. The full House refused to seat him until completion of an investigation by the Judiciary Committee. In March the House voted 307 to 116 to expel him. Powell won the special election in April to fill the vacancy caused by his expulsion, but did not take his seat.
In June 1969 the Supreme Court ruled that the House had acted unconstitutionally when it expelled Powell, and he returned to the House, but without his seniority. Again his absenteeism was increasingly noted. In June 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 Miami, where he died in 1972.
Powell married three times. He and his second wife, Hazel Scott Powell, had a son, Adam Clayton Powell III, who is a visiting professor at the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California. With his third wife, Yvette Diago Powell, Powell had a son, Adam Clayton Powell IV, who is a member of the New York State Assembly. Adam Clayton Powell III has a son, also called Adam Clayton Powell IV, who is a professor of engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. To distinguish the two Adam Clayton Powell IVs, they are known as the Hon Adam Clayton Powell IV and Professor Adam Clayton Powell IV.
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