The Mesmerist

Harlem's handsome, husky Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. talks more and does less about civil rights than anyone on Capitol Hill. In his 14 congressional years, he numbers his flamingly civil-righteous words in the hundreds of thousands, his headlines in the thousands--and his actual legislative achievements on the fingers of one flamboyantly waving hand. Yet Adam Powell is the living rebuttal to the notion that actions speak louder than words--and last week he proved it again. In his roughest political fight, bitterly opposed by Manhattan's Tammany Hall and New York's Democratic Governor Averell Harriman, the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. swamped Democratic primary opponent Earl Brown, a New York City councilman, by 14,837 to 4,935 votes, won certain re-election to the House.

"I Just Outgrew Her." Powell's secret of success lies in his gaudy person and personality, which seem to mesmerize Harlem's 75.000 eligible voters. Tall and trim (6 ft. 2 in., 193 Ibs.), the descendant of slaves (at ten. he says, he traced with horror the brand on his grandfather's back), he has talked his way to wealth and influence, become the dashing symbol of all that his constituents would like to be. An ordained minister, he succeeded his father in the pulpit of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church (9,943 congregants). Promptly turning the pulpit into a platform, he set about denouncing political rivals, rarely failing to kiss his female congregant-constituents as they filed past after his spellbinding sermons. Elected to the House in 1944, he kept piling up fame and fortune, acquired a powder-blue Mark V Jaguar, a destroyer-grey Nash-Healey, two boats, three posh homes. 20 winter suits, and, in lawful succession, two wives. Wife No. 1 was a trim Cotton Club chorine, whom Powell divorced in 1945 ("I fear I just outgrew her"). Wife No. 2 is Jazz Pianist Hazel Scott, who spends most of her time in Paris these days, amid epidemic rumors of impending divorce.

On Capitol Hill, Powell would rate rock bottom on any list of Congressmen's Congressman. His absenteeism is monumental (last year's roll call attendance: 46%); he is noisy, obstructionist and, above all, ineffective. Last year, for example, he insisted on tacking a civil rights clause to the much-needed $1.5 billion school construction bill. Powell knew he could never get the rider approved; he also knew that his intransigeance would kill the bill-which would have helped Harlem's schoolchildren as much as anyone in the U.S. It turned out just that way.

"Hired Hoodlums." To New York's Powell-weary Democratic organization, the breaking point came when Powell supported Dwight Eisenhower for President in 1956. Searching around for a Democratic candidate against the big man from Harlem, Tammany came upon Councilman Brown, whose civil rights performance surpasses his oratory, e.g., he is co-author of New York City's antidiscrimination housing law.

But Brown never really had a chance. From the beginning. Powell denounced him to cheering Harlem thousands as a "handpicked Uncle Tom selected by the Tammany plantation bosses to work against his own people." On the weekend before election, Powell let out the last demagogic stops. Regular Democratic election workers, he declared, had been ordered to wear rings with sharp cutting edges so as to destroy ballots for Powell. Cried Adam Powell: "If officials do not stop this influx of hired hoodlums, black and white, I hereby announce publicly that I will not be responsible in any way for what happens."

On election day, Tammany suffered its worst defeat since it opposed Vincent Impellitteri for mayor in 1950. Powell won both the Democratic and Republican nominations, leaving Brown in the political cellar with the Liberal Party's nomination. Even before the votes were counted, Powell demanded that Tammany's Harlem leaders resign, leaving him in complete, unchallenged control of akey vote bloc. The cost of Tammany's refusal, Powell made plain, would be his support of Democratic Governor Harriman in the November election. And in a close contest, Adam Powell's support could make all the difference.

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