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Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who represented Harlem in the U.S. Congress from 1945 through 1971, was the first modern African American politician and the first Black Congressman to exercise real power in the halls of Washington, D.C. He succeeded his father as the pastor of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church and parlayed the pulpit into a political career. Yet, after scaling the summit of power, Powell lost it all, seemingly fatigued by the failure of liberalism to deliver on providing the American Dream to all Americans, regardless of color, and tripped up by his own moral shortcomings.
Due to seniority, Powell eventually rose in Congress and in 1961, became chairman of the Education & Labor Committee, one of the critical committees in the House of Representatives. From this post, Powell was instrumental in passing legislation introduced by Presidents John F. Kennedy and his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, including such watershed programs as Medicare and Medicaid. The social programs that were part of Johnson's vision of "The Great Society" were shepherded by Powell through his committee.
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and Education & Labor Committee set records in passing legislation as Johnson set out not only to equal but surpass Roosevelt and the New Deal by enacting liberal, progressive laws to help the common people in general and African Americans in particular. However, L.B.J. also sowed the seeds of the cancer that would destroy his presidency and undermine liberalism: The Vietnam War. Liberalism, which seemed so remarkably ascendant in the period of 1964-66, would be swamped at the polls in 1968 after suffering a setback during the by-election of 1966. As the inner-cities burned on TV, white society began to evince a severe backlash against African Americans.
Powell's absences from committee hearings became legion. It could be seen as symbolic of the anomie that was afflicting the African American community, that soon began afflicting liberalism in general, as a philosophy and political movement. It was if liberalism set off a cycle of violence both at home, in the ghettos, and abroad, in Vietnam.
Soon, Adam Clayton Powell seemed to lose interest. He became careless. Earlier, as a young man, his commitment to the church had been questioned. Some felt that he had just used the pulpit as a vehicle to obtain social position. Likewise, Powell's commitment to social progress began to be questioned.
In a bizarre development that showed Powell was losing his political as well as moral judgment, he lost a slander lawsuit. The Congressman from Harlem refused to pay the judgment against him, which made him subject to arrest. Powell curtailed trips to New York to avoid being incarcerated, and began spending more time in Florida and Bimini, where he lived ostentatiously. His failure to be present in Congress for roll-call votes became a scandal of its own. While petty corruption of the kind practiced by Powell had long been a hallmark of Congressmen and Senators (U.S. Senator Tom Dodd was censured in June 1967 for misusing campaign funds) for the chairman of one of the most powerful committees in Congress to be absent regularly could not be tolerated.
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. won his 11th bid for reelection to Congress in 1966, but when he went to take the oath of office in January 1967, Speaker of the House refused to administer it to him. He was excluded from the chamber, and the House Democratic Caucus ousted Powell as chair of the Education & Labor Committee due to allegations of corruption.
The House of Representatives refused to let him take his seat until the completion of an investigation by a Special Committee empowered by the Judiciary Committee. After the Select Committee reported its findings, in March of 1967 the House voted 307 to 116 to censure Powell and declare his seat vacant. He also was fined $40,000.
Always a fighter, Powell and 13 of his constituents filed a federal lawsuit against the Speaker and other House officials. In his lawsuit, Powell claimed that his expulsion was unconstitutional as the Constitution mandated a two-thirds vote to expel a member of a Congressional body, a bar the House had failed to meet. In the meantime, Powell ran for his vacated seat in a special election held in April, and won. He did not retake his seat, but continued his legal battle through the federal courts. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 1969, in the case of Powell v. McCormack, that the expulsion was unconstitutional, agreeing with Powell's argument that it took a two-thirds vote to exclude a member of Congress. Thus, Powell was able to retake his seat, but he had lost his seniority and his political power.
After being re-seated in Congress, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. again was criticized for absenteeism, and in the June 1970 Democratic primary, he was defeated by Charles Rangel. Powell vowed to get on the ballot as an independent for the November election, but did not. Resigning as the minister of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, he moved to Bimini, where he lived until April 1972, when he was hospitalized in Miami. He died on April 4, 1972 from acute prostatitis. He was 63 years old.
