Big Daddy's Big Day

Big Daddy's Big Day Harlem, the densest concentration of Negroes in the world, is a world unto itself, occupying a fifth of Manhattan Island and stealthily creeping south. It is at once a dark and tragic slum, a thriving, neon-trimmed Main Street, a sparkling and earsplitting nightclub. It is the homesick croon of a West Indian immigrant, the glint of a switchblade in a teen-age rumble, the patient prayers of the hardworking faithful, the clink of pennies in a revivalist's plate. Harlem has mothered a strange and varied brood: Bojangles Robinson, tap-dancing down Broadway; Sugar Ray Robinson in a fuchsia Cadillac; Josephine Baker in a banana-laden G-string; pro-Communist Vito Marcantonio, haranguing a street-corner crowd; Father Divine in his special heavens, and--most recently--Adam Clayton Powell Jr., pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, U.S.

Representative from New York's 16th Congressional District, bon vivant, demagogue, and today's undisputed Big Daddy of Harlem.

Last week in Manhattan's Foley Square courthouse, the case of United States of America v. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. went to the jury. Charged with filing a fraudulent 1951 income tax return for his estranged wife. Jazz Pianist Hazel Scott, Powell faced a theoretical $10,000 fine, five years in jail. The long-delayed case, which had been under federal investigation for more than four years, was haphazardly prosecuted by the Government; two of three original charges against Powell were thrown out during the trial when the government failed to support the charges. Powell himself was brilliantly defended by Attorney Edward Bennett Williams, attorney in the past for such defendants as Jimmy Hoffa, Frank Costello and the late Senator Joe McCarthy. After 26 hours of deliberation, the confused and divided jury (10-2 for acquittal) was dismissed, and Judge Frederick vanPelt Bryan recessed the case until May 12, when he will consider Lawyer Williams' request for a directed verdict of not guilty.

Cherokee Grandmother. As the Pied Piper of Harlem, Powell has an odd set of credentials. Most of his followers are Negroes; and though the lightskinned, hazel-eyed Powell has represented himself in the past as the grandson of a branded slave, he now says he is not a Negro (his grandmother, he says, was a Cherokee Indian, his other grandparents white). Most of his constituents know the sting of poverty; Powell has never lacked money. His mother, Mattie Powell, was an illegitimate heiress of the Schaefer brewing fortune, according to her son, and his father dabbled in Harlem real estate and was the pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, with the largest Protestant congregation in the world (present membership: well over 10,000).

The Powells vacationed at Bar Harbor and exclusive Canadian resorts (always accepted as whites), and young Adam grew up with a taste for expensive clothes, fancy cars, European trips and Upmann cigars. After flunking out of the College of the City of New York, he went off to Colgate with money provided by his mother. In his senior year he got a "call" to be a preacher, and proud Mattie Powell rewarded him with $2,500 to make a four-month tour of Europe and Africa, including a chauffeur-driven trip through the Holy Land. In 1932 Powell's father had a nervous breakdown, and young Adam unhesitatingly took over his pulpit in the emergency. A tall (6 ft. 3 in.), handsome man and a spellbinding orator, he was a roaring success; his maiden sermon left the congregation weeping and shouting amen. Five years later, when Adam Sr. retired, his son became full pastor of the church.

But one career was not enough, and during the Depression, Adam Powell emerged as a Negro nationalist and a skilled leader. He helped establish a church relief program in Harlem, dished out a thousand free meals a day in the church basement, quickly became a civic mover and shaker. He early recognized and utilized the latent strength of Harlem, was able to force such commercial giants as Liggett Drug stores and Consolidated Edison to employ Negroes. When the New York Telephone Co. balked at his demands, Powell threatened to disrupt the system by instructing his followers to dial the operator for every telephone call they made. The telephone company promptly capitulated, began to hire Negroes. "Negroes have got to be radicals," Powell shouted from the pulpit and the political platform. "Only radical measures can liberate us!"

Mississippi Rumbles. Powell was elected to the New York City Council in 1941, and three years later ascended to Congress from a district 90% Negro. He was--and he remains--unbeatable. When he rejected the Democratic ticket in 1956 to support Dwight Eisenhower, and when Tammany Hall dumped him, the voters of Harlem remained loyal to Powell.

In Congress, Powell distinguished himself by his freshman rumbles with the late, unreconstructed John Rankin of Mississippi, by his absenteeism (he is an inveterate traveler, has made 15 trips to Venice), and by a demagogic device known as "the Powell Amendment" -- a desegre gation rider that he tries to tack, at every, opportunity, onto school, housing or labor bills. It instantly arouses Southern oppo sition and Northern anguish, has killed at least one worthy bill and made Powell the most unpopular man in Congress. With the retirement of North Carolina's Graham Barden at the end of the present session, Powell, thanks to the sacredness of seniority, has a legitimate claim on the chairmanship of the House Committee on Education and Labor next January.

At 51, Adam Powell has the capacity to become a worthy leader of his chosen people -- if his talents were matched by the character of a Thurgood Marshall or a Ralph Bunche. But he sees his role in the drama of desegregation through small bore eyes. Says he: "I'm an irritant. That's it. I see myself that way. People say I passed this bill and I'm the author of that law. But I see myself as an irri tant. Just to keep on turning the screw, turning the screw. Drip, drip, drip makes a hole in the marble."

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