Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

Abstract Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., was born in 1908 in New Haven, Connecticut, and raised in New York City. In 1931 he succeeded his father as senior pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. In 1944 he was elected to Congress as a represented from Harlem. Powell became chairman of the powerful House Committee on Labor, a post that afforded him the chance to exercise or not) that evoked reluctant admiration. So, he went off on racial and personal tangents? What matter, even if his barbs made one wince? He showed to a superb degree how the American electoral and legislative processes can be made to work for an abused citizenry. For this alone, disregarding his flamboyance and his puckish sallies, white America, plagued on the race problem with a horde of raucous imitators who lack his skills, should say a prayer for Adam Clayton Powell.