Adam Clayton Powell Jr.

Adam Clayton married his first wife Isabel Washington in 1933. She was a singer and regularly performed at nightclubs. She had a son named Preston from her earlier marriage. Powell adopted him. They got divorced in 1945.

In 1945, he married Hazel Scot, also a singer. The couple had a son name Adam Clayton Powell III. He grew up to be a famed academician. The marriage ended in a divorce in 1960.

Soon after divorcing Hazel in 1960 Powell married Yvette Flores Diago from Puerto Rico. They had a son named Adam Clayton Powell Diago. However, the boy later changed his name to Adam Clayton IV. This marriage too ended in 1965.

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was born on November 29, 1908, in New Haven, Connecticut to Adam Clayton Powell Senior and Mattie Buster Shaffer. Both his parents were of mixed racial origin and because of that young Powell was born with light complexion, blond hair and hazel eyes. He also had a sister, named Blanche, ten years his senior.

Immediately after the birth of his son, Adam Clayton Powell Sr. became the pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, located at Harlem. Consequently, the family shifted to Harlem and eventually settled there. Though born poor Adam Sr. had worked his way up and consequently, Adam Junior grew up in comfortable surroundings.

Adam Junior passed out from Townsend Harris High School and enrolled at City College of New York. However, he spent much of time having fun and attending nightclubs. Hearing this, his father took him out of the college and put him in Colgate University as a freshman.

Adam Jr. graduated from Colgate University in 1930 with a BA degree. He next joined Columbia University and in 1933, he earned his MA in Religious Education from there. He then joined Shaw University and graduated from there in 1934.

After passing out from the Shaw University Adam Clayton Powell Junior was ordained into the service of the church. He then began to assist his father both in preaching and in charitable works. He also reached out to the community and began to learn about their problems from close quarters.

Along with working as an assistant pastor, Adam Jr. joined a local newspaper as a columnist. This helped him to reach out to a wider section of the population and gather popular support. Two years later in 1937, he succeeded his father as the pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church.

Under him, the church began to expand rapidly and soon its membership reached 13,000. With such a big following, he started demanding fair job opportunity and affordable housing facilities for the blacks and used ingenious methods to make sure his demands are heard.

Apart from organizing mass meetings, public campaigns and rent strikes he advocated boycotting of those shops which did not hire black workers. His call, ‘Shop Only Where You Can Work’ forced many white shop owners to hire black workers. Those who did not had to shut down.

He also took active part in forming Greater New York Coordinating Committee (GNYCC) for Employment. When in 1939, World’s Fair was being organized in New York the organization led a picket in front of their headquarters in Empire State Building and forced the authority to hire 732 black workers instead of original 200.

As an important member of the House, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was instrumental in passing many important legislations. It was due to his efforts that lynching became a federal crime.

He also fought against racial segregation and challenged southern practices like ‘voting tax’, which deprived the African Americans of their voting rights. Such fights resulted in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Act provided federal oversight of voter registration and ensured free election.

He was also a writer. ‘Marching Blacks, An Interpretive History of the Rise of the Black Common Man’ (1945); ‘The New Image in Education: A Prospectus for the Future by the Chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor’ (1962); ‘Keep the Faith, Baby!’ (1967) and ‘Adam by Adam: The Autobiography of Adam Clayton Powell Jr.’ (1971) are some of his important works.