Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.: The Political Biography of an American Dilemma / Edition 1

by Charles V. Hamilton

Overview

This fascinating, authoritative biography traces the extraordinary rise and preipitous fall of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the eccentric and enigmatic congressman from Harlem.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815411840
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	12/24/2001
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	576
Product dimensions:	6.04(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.23(d)

About the Author

A professor at Columbia, Charles V. Hamilton's other books include The Bench and the Ballot and (with Stokley Carmichael) Black Power.

Table of Contents

	Prologue: An American dilemma and a Political Career	1
	Introduction
1.	The Fall from Power: Double Standard or Due Punishment?	13
2.	Born to Privilege and Pampering	41
	The Pulpit and Protest, 1930s-1940s
3.	Harlem: A Report to the Mayor and Advice from a Columnist	55
4.	Abyssinian Bapist Church: A Symbiotic Relationship	71
5.	Preaching and Picketing	83
6.	The City Council and Mayor La Guardia	109
	Congressional Irritant, 1940s-1950s
7.	Election to Congress and the Roosevelts	139
8.	President Truman and a Report: "To Secure These Rights"	163
9.	The Communist Party, the FBI, and "Mr. Civil Rights"	175
10.	The Eisenhower Administration, the "Powell Amendment," and the Liberals' Lament	199
11.	The Bandung Conference and a (Surprising) Voice for America	237
12.	Alleged Kickbacks and an Income Tax Investigation	249
13.	Switch to President Eisenhower, 1956	259
14.	Victory over Tammany Hall, 1958	299
15.	Surviving an Income Tax Trial	313
	Power and Paradox, 1960s
16.	The New Frontier, a New Chairman, and President Kennedy	329
17.	The Great Society, "Mr. Chairman," and President Johnson	369
18.	"I will always do just what every other Congressman ... has done."	407
19.	Exposing Crime and Corruption, and the "Bag Woman" Case	429
20.	Congressional Rebuke, Supreme Court Victory, and Electoral Defeat	445
21.	Legacy	479
	Notes	489
	Index	529

Editorial Reviews

Hamilton gives the reader a chance to live in Powells New York and , really. it would be anybody's kind of town.

Black Issues Book Review

Captures the full range of an exciting man.

The New York Times

Powell was a seminal figure, the first modern rogue civil rights leader, a maddening amalgam of morality and amorality, brilliance, and corruption. It is Hamilton's contention that Powell is a perfect lens through which to view the gap between America's human rights canon and its racial reality.... Hamilton has combed the congressman's papers and interviewed just about everyone still alive who was close to him.

New Republic

A balanced and dynamic portrait of the controversial mid-century congressman from Harlem.--Publishers Weekly

Blending scholarship and ironic detachment, an admirably balanced treatment of a politician who provoked anything but objectivity during his Marion Barry-like career.--Kirkus

Captures the full range of an exciting man.--The New York Times

From the Publisher

Captures the full range of an exciting man.

The New York Times

Powell (1908-72) fused a complex mix of temperament and tactics into a discomforting, loud leadership of racial protest that insistently exposed the gap between American principle and performance, argues Hamilton. Probing Powell's rise and fall, Hamilton moves from the 1930s, when Powell became a New York City councilman, to his service starting in 1945 as a U.S. Representative, and then to his chairing of the House Education and Labor Committee, his expulsion from the House in 1967, and his defeat at the polls in 1970. Hamilton's able analysis of the unapologetic, openly arrogant champion of civil rights reflects the race issues of the day within a prism of political theory focused on the conflict of basic American values like majority rule and minority rights. This book is essential for any serious collection on black biography, civil rights, or political analysis. Highly recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/1/91.-- Thomas J. Davis, Univ. at Buffalo, N.Y.

Library Journal

Hamilton (government, Columbia U.) traces the extraordinary rise and the precipitous fall of Powell (1908-1972), the flamboyant and controversial congressman from Harlem, reassessing Powell's complex and unique place in American history. With 16 page of photographs. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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