Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was an American Baptist pastor and politician who represented the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the United States House of Representatives from 1945 until 1971. He was the first African American to be elected to Congress from New York, as well as the first from any state in the Northeast. Re-elected for nearly three decades, Powell became a powerful national politician of the Democratic Party, and served as a national spokesman on civil rights and social issues. He also urged United States presidents to support emerging nations in Africa and Asia as they gained independence after colonialism.
Marvel Jackson Cooke was a pioneering American journalist, writer, and civil rights activist. She was the first African-American woman to work at a mainstream white-owned newspaper.
Hubert Henry Harrison was a West Indian-American writer, orator, educator, critic, race and class conscious political activist, and radical internationalist based in Harlem, New York. He was described by activist A. Philip Randolph as "the father of Harlem radicalism" and by the historian Joel Augustus Rogers as "the foremost Afro-American intellect of his time." John G. Jackson of American Atheists described him as "The Black Socrates".
The Communist Party USA, ideologically committed to foster a socialist revolution in the United States, played a significant role in defending the civil rights of African Americans during its most influential years of the 1930s and 1940s. In that period, the African-American population was still concentrated in the South, where it was largely disenfranchised, excluded from the political system, and oppressed under Jim Crow laws.
Fredericka Carolyn "Fredi" Washington was an American stage and film actress, civil rights activist, performer, and writer. Washington was of African American descent. She was one of the first Black Americans to gain recognition for film and stage work in the 1920s and 1930s.
The African Blood Brotherhood for African Liberation and Redemption (ABB) was a U.S. black liberation organization established in 1919 in New York City by journalist Cyril Briggs. The group was established as a propaganda organization built on the model of the secret society. The group's socialist orientation caught the attention of the fledgling American communist movement and the ABB soon evolved into a propaganda arm of the Communist Party of America. The group was terminated in the early 1920s.
The Abyssinian Baptist Church is a Baptist megachurch located at 132 West 138th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Lenox Avenue in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It is affiliated with the National Baptist Convention, USA and American Baptist Churches USA.
Adam Clayton "A.C." Powell IV is an American politician from the state of New York. He was a member of the New York State Assembly from 2001 to 2010. From 1992 to 1997, he served as New York City Council Member representing East Harlem and parts of the Upper West Side and the South Bronx. Beginning in 2001, Powell represented the 68th Assembly District, which includes parts of Harlem and East Harlem. He was defeated by Charles Rangel in the 2010 Democratic Primary for the seat of the 15th Congressional District.
Adam Clayton Powell was an American pastor who developed the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York as the largest Protestant congregation in the country, with 10,000 members. He was an African American community activist, author, and the father of Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Born into poverty in southwestern Virginia, Powell worked to put himself through school and Wayland Seminary, where he was ordained in 1892.
The Amsterdam News is a weekly Black-owned newspaper serving New York City. It is one of the oldest newspapers geared toward African Americans in the United States and has published columns by such figures as W. E. B. Du Bois, Roy Wilkins, and Adam Clayton Powell Jr., and was the first to recognize and publish Malcolm X.
Benjamin Jefferson Davis Jr., was an African-American lawyer and communist who was elected in 1943 to the New York City Council, representing Harlem. He faced increasing opposition from outside Harlem after the end of World War II. In 1949 he was among a number of communist leaders prosecuted for violating the Smith Act. He was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.
Edward Richard Dudley was an American lawyer, judge, civil rights activist and the first African-American to hold the rank of Ambassador of the United States, as ambassador to Liberia from 1949 to 1953.
John Raymond Jones was the last Grand Sachem of Tammany Hall, a New York City Councilman for Harlem, a district leader, ran the Carver Democratic Club, and was Adam Clayton Powell's campaign manager in 1958, opposing Tammany Hall, and Carmine DeSapio.
The Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building, originally the Harlem State Office Building, is a nineteen-story, high-rise office building located at 163 West 125th Street at the corner of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It is named after Adam Clayton Powell Jr, the first African-American elected to Congress from New York. It was designed by the African-American architecture firm of Ifill Johnson Hanchard in the shape of an African mask in the Brutalist style. It is the tallest building in Harlem, overtaking the nearby Hotel Theresa.
The St. Nicholas Historic District, known colloquially as "Striver's Row", is a historic district located on both sides of West 138th and West 139th Streets between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, in the Harlem neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is both a national and a New York City historic district, and consists of row houses and associated buildings designed by three architectural firms and built in 1891–93 by developer David H. King Jr. These are collectively recognized as gems of New York City architecture, and "an outstanding example of late 19th-century urban design":
Founded in the 17th century as a Dutch outpost, Harlem developed into a farming village, a revolutionary battlefield, a resort town, a commuter town, a center of African-American culture, a ghetto, and a gentrified neighborhood.
Fannie Emma Pennington was an American activist, organizer, and fundraising coordinator for U.S. Congressional Representative (Harlem) Adam Clayton Powell Jr.'s Isaac Democratic Club and the Abyssinian Baptist Church A.C.P. Overseas Club. She was also a member of the New York City Board of Elections and the Frederick E. Samuel Community Democratic Club, the Satellite Club, the Courtesy Guild, the Progressive Ladies Usher Board of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, the ABC Welcome and Hospitality Committee. She was an official representative of the Barmaid Charity Organization. She was a New York leader of the bus organizing efforts in 1963 for the March on Washington.
African-American socialism is a political current that emerged in the nineteenth century, specifically referring to the origins and proliferation of Marxist ideologies among African-Americans for whom socialism represents a potential for equal class status, humane treatment as laborers, and a means of dismantling American capitalism. Black liberation is in line with Marxist theory, which asserts that the working class, regardless of race, has a common interest against the bourgeoisie.
The Renaissance Ballroom & Casino was an entertainment complex at 2341–2349 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. When opened in 1921, it included a casino, ballroom, 900-seat theater, six retail stores, and a basketball arena. It spanned the entire eastern frontage of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard between 137th and 138th Streets.
Isabel "Belle" Geraldine Washington Powell was a dancer, showgirl, and actress during the Harlem Renaissance. She was the first wife of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., and after their divorce, she went on to work in the Harlem public school system.
