Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.; The Political Biography of an American Dilemma

New York: Atheneum, 1991. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Good/Good. x, [2], 545, [3] pages. Illustrations. Notes. Index. Corners of several pages creased. DJ has some wear and soiling, with some edge tears. Charles Vernon Hamilton (born October 19, 1929) is a political scientist, civil rights leader, and the W. S. Sayre Professor Emeritus of Government and Political Science at Columbia University. He joined the Columbia University faculty in 1969 and Hamilton retired in 1998. His most noted work is Black Power: The Politics of Liberation, written with Stokely Carmichael. Cashmore and Jennings argue that Hamilton and Carmichael were the first to use the term institutional racism in a systematic fashion. This book offers a sympathetic and judicious portrait of Adam Clayton Powell (1908-1972), the flamboyant reverend and unapologetically arrogant yet morally principled champion of civil rights. This biography effectively chronicles Powell's rise and fall. In this authoritative biography of the congressman and civil rights activist Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Prof. Hamilton reassesses the man's unique and complex place in American history. As the senior pastor of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church, Powell led protests against segregation and discrimination during the Great Depression. Through persistent effort and skillful politicking, Powell was elected to Congress in 1944 and continued his efforts on behalf of blacks during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. Following Kennedy's election, Powell gained the chairmanship of the House Committee on Education and Labor, but the remaining years of his life were filled with accusations, family problems, and the loss of his supporters. Drawing on extensive interviews and untapped archival material, Hamilton enriches the reader's understanding of Powell and the turbulent era in which he lived.