Adam Clayton Powell Jr.

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was the most powerful Black politician in America for two decades — a Harlem congressman who chaired the House Education and Labor Committee and pushed through more progressive legislation than any committee chairman of his era. Under his leadership, the committee passed over 60 pieces of landmark legislation, including the minimum wage increase, the War on Poverty, and federal education funding bills that transformed American life.

Born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1908, and raised in Harlem, Powell was the son of Adam Clayton Powell Sr., pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church — the largest Protestant congregation in America. After graduating from Colgate University, he succeeded his father as pastor and used the pulpit as a platform for political activism, leading boycotts and protests that forced Harlem businesses to hire Black workers.

Elected to Congress in 1944, Powell was flamboyant, confrontational, and unapologetically Black at a time when Black politicians were expected to be deferential. He refused to use segregated facilities in the Capitol, brought his Black staff to the House restaurant, and challenged racist colleagues openly. His enemies — and he made many, including within his own party — eventually stripped him of his committee chairmanship and excluded him from Congress in 1967. The Supreme Court ruled the exclusion unconstitutional, and Harlem kept re-electing him.