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Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (November 29, 1908 – April 4, 1972) was a Baptist pastor and an American politician, who represented Harlem, New York City, in the United States House of Representatives (1945–71). He was the first person from New York of African-American descent to be elected to Congress, and the fourth African American from the North to be elected in the Post-Reconstruction Era after Oscar Stanton De Priest. He became a powerful national politician of the Democratic Party, re-elected numerous times and serving as a national spokesman on civil rights and social issues. He also urged presidents to support emerging nations in Africa and Asia as they gained independence after colonialism. In 1961, after sixteen years in the House, Powell became chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, the most powerful position held by an African American in Congress. As Chairman, he supported the passage of important social legislation under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Following allegations of corruption, in 1967 Powell was excluded from his seat by Democratic Representatives-elect of the 90th Congress, but he was re-elected and regained the seat in a 1969 United States Supreme Court ruling in ''Powell v. McCormack.'' ==Early years== Powell was born in 1908 in New Haven, Connecticut, the second child and only son of Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. and Mattie Buster Shaffer, both born poor in Virginia and West Virginia, respectively. His sister Blanche was 10 years older. His parents were of mixed race with African and European ancestry (and, according to his father, American Indian on his mother's side). They and ancestors were classified as mulatto in 19th-century censuses; Powell's paternal grandmother's ancestors had been free for generations before the Civil War.〔1860 US Census, "Adam Duning" and family, Franklin County, North Eastern Division, Virginia.〕 By that year, Powell Sr. had become a prominent Baptist minister, serving as a pastor in Philadelphia, and being called as the lead pastor at a Baptist church in New Haven. Powell Sr. had worked his way out of poverty and through Wayland Seminary, a historically black college, and postgraduate study at Yale University and Virginia Seminary. After his son's birth, that year Powell Sr. was called as the pastor of the prominent Abyssinian Baptist Church in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City; he led the church for decades through major expansion. He directed fundraising and construction of an addition to accommodate the increased membership of the congregation during the years of the Great Migration. It grew to a community of 10,000 persons. Due to his father's achievements, Powell grew up in a wealthy household in New York City. As a young child Adam was born with hazel eyes, fair skin and blond hair, he could pass for white, but he did not play with that identity until college.〔 He attended Townsend Harris High School. He studied at City College of New York, then started at Colgate University in upstate as a freshman. The four other African-American students at Colgate were all athletes. For a time, Powell briefly passed as white, using his appearance to escape racial strictures at college. The other black students were dismayed to discover what he had done.〔〔 〕 Encouraged by his father to become a minister, Powell got more serious about his studies at Colgate; he earned his bachelor's degree in 1930.〔 〕 After returning to New York, he did graduate work. In 1931, he earned an M.A. in religious education from Columbia University. He became a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the fraternity started by and for blacks. Apparently later trying to bolster his black identity, Powell told stories of his paternal grandparents having been born to slavery. But, his paternal grandmother, Sally Dunning, was at least the third generation of free people of color; in the 1860 census, she is listed as a free mulatto, along with her mother, grandmother, and siblings.〔 Sally never identified the father of Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., born 1865. She appeared to have named her son after her older brother Adam Dunning, listed on the 1860 census as the head of their household and a farmer.〔 In 1867 Sally Dunning married Anthony Bush, a mulatto freedman. All the family members were listed under the surname Dunning in the 1870 census. The family changed its surname to Powell when they moved to Kanawha County, West Virginia, as part of their new life there.〔1870 Census, "Anthony Dunning" and family, Franklin County, Bonbrook PO, Virginia; and 1880 Census, "Anthony Powell" and family, Cabin Creek, Kanawha County, West Virginia〕〔(J. Daniel Pezzoni, "Hook-Powell-Moorman Farm": Historic Nomination Form ), United States Department of the Interior, 1995. According to Charles V. Hamilton, a 1991 biographer of Powell, Anthony Bush "decided to take the name Powell as a new identity."〕 It was shown in the 1880 census.〔1880 Census, "Anthony Powell" and family, Cabin Creek, Kanawha County, West Virginia〕 Adam Jr.'s mother Mattie Buster Shaffer was also of mixed race; her parents had been slaves in Virginia, who were freed after the American Civil War. Powell's parents married in West Virginia, where they met. Numerous freedmen had migrated there in the late 19th century for work. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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