Powell Clayton

(b. New Haven, Connecticut, 29 Nov. 1908; d. 4 Apr. 1972) US; member of the US House of Representatives 1945 – 66, 1969 – 70 Although Adam Clayton Powell was to become a flamboyant figure in black politics, he was descended from a white slave-owner on his father's side, was part-Cherokee Indian, and looked white. Powell grew up in New York where his father, a minister, built up the Harlem Abyssinian Baptist church into one of the largest black churches in the country. Educated at Colgate University and Columbia, Powell succeeded his father as minister at Abyssinian Baptist in 1931, where he organized relief programmes during the Depression.

In 1941 Powell was elected to the New York City Council and he built up a solid following in Harlem, where he led the militant People's Committee and also edited a weekly newspaper. In 1945 he was elected to the House of Representatives for New York's 19th District, which had the almost exclusively black Harlem at its core but which later took in parts of the affluent white Upper West Side. Powell was the first black to be elected to Congress from the East Coast and became a national celebrity in the twenty-five years he represented the district. An independent black determined to fight for racial justice, in his early years in Congress he sponsored a range of measures designed to remove segregation from American life. Between 1960 and 1967 he exercised real legislative influence as seniority brought him the chairmanship of the Education and Labour Committee and control over the range of antipoverty programmes. He used his position to shape more than fifty pieces of reforming social legislation, including the 1961 Minimum Wage Bill.

Yet Powell's position was never entirely comfortable either in the black community or in Congress. Many blacks regarded him as arrogant and egocentric. He had always been seen as something of a maverick by the Democratic Party: in 1956 he voted for Eisenhower as President over Adlai Stevenson, a move which angered his party colleagues. He had a high absentee rate in Congress. And his personal life was more akin to that of a playboy than a serious politician.

In 1967 the House voted to exclude him from Congress following his attempt to evade a court judgment in a libel suit and allegations of the misuse of his staff payroll. He was re-elected in a special election but did not immediately attempt to reclaim the seat. He was re-elected again in 1968 and the House voted to reinstate him though it imposed a fine and a loss of seniority. (In 1969 the Supreme Court found his original exclusion from the House had been unconstitutional.) Although apparently vindicated, Powell's political career was gravely damaged. By 1969 Powell, who had also been suffering from cancer, seemed on the verge of retirement. Yet he decided to run again in 1970 despite strong opposition. In the Democratic primary in 1970, Charles Rangel, a black New York Assemblyman and former Powell supporter, narrowly defeated Powell. An attempt to get the primary declared invalid failed and Powell's political career ended. He died two years later.

The political leader and Harlem Baptist minister Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (1908-1972) was a pioneer in civil rights for black Americans.

Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. was born on November 29, 1908, in New Haven, Connecticut, moving with his parents at the age of six to Harlem, New York City. His father was a successful clergyman and a dabbler in real-estate. Adam was sent to Hamilton, New York, to Colgate University (1930, A.B.) and afterwards to Columbia University (Teachers College, 1932, M.A.) and studied for the ministry at Shaw University (1935, D.D.).

He was heir-apparent to his father at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and succeeded him as pastor in 1937. Upon his return to Harlem from Colgate in 1930 he had launched a career of agitation for civil rights, jobs, and housing for African Americans. It was the era of the Depression. He led demonstrations against department stores, Bell Telephone, Consolidated Edison, and Harlem Hospital, among others, to hire African Americans.

Elected to the city council in 1941, he continued to press for civil rights and for jobs for African Americans in public transportation and the city colleges. As editor of the militant People's Voice from 1942, and with a reputation gained from his church for doing something about the destitute (he directed a soup kitchen and a relief operation that fed and clothed thousands of Harlem indigents), he was a force to be reckoned with in the Depression. Leader of the largest African American church in the nation (13, 000 members - a sizeable basis of support), he was ready to use his ample skill in political demagoguery and his charisma in defense of African American nationalism. At the age of 15 he had joined Marcus Garvey's African Nationalist Pioneer Movement, so he understood African American nationalism. The Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia had awarded him a gold medallion for his work of relief in Harlem: he wore it everywhere. Powell's picket lines at the headquarters of the World's Fair in the Empire State Building resulted in hundreds of jobs for African Americans in 1939 and 1940.

But it was after his election to Congress that he really made his stand. He took his seat in 1945 for central Harlem. He was the first African American from an Eastern ghetto and the second African American in Congress - the first was William Dawson of Chicago. Dawson was more moderate than Powell.

As a freshman congressman Powell was appalled at being barred from public facilities in the House of Representatives: dining rooms, steam baths, showers, and barber-shop. He instantly used those facilities; with political instinct, he got his staff to use them also. He engaged Southern segregationists in debate. He tried to bring about an end to segregation in the military, to get African American newsmen admitted to the Senate and House press galleries, to introduce legislation to outlaw Jim Crow in transport, and to inform Congress that the Daughters of the American Revolution were practicing discrimination.

The Southern segregationists were mainly in his own party, the Democratic Party. In 1956 Powell supported Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican seeking a second term, and did not go with Adlai E. Stevenson, the Democratic nominee. He advised Stevenson to reject Southern bigots like Long of Louisiana, Eastland of Mississippi, and Tallmadge of Georgia - all of whom were in the Democratic Party. Eisenhower won, and some Democrats were prepared to punish Powell for his defection. Some critics accused him of currying favor with the federal government over alleged tax irregularities by voting for Eisenhower. Many Democrats had switched to the Republican Party for the presidential choice, as he did, but they were not African American congressmen. Powell was his own man.

Nevertheless, Powell was a Democrat; he welcomed the advent of a new president, Democrat John F. Kennedy in 1960, and became the new chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor. Despite a high absentee record in the House, his accomplishments as chairman were extraordinary. As Powell himself said: "You don't have to be there if you know which calls to make, which buttons to push, which favors to call in." The committee authorized more important legislation than any other: 48 major pieces of social legislation, embodying more than $14 billion. Kennedy's "New Frontier" and Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" programs were intimately involved with this committee: education, manpower training, minimum wages, juvenile delinquency, and the war on poverty were all at stake. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson both sent Powell letters of thanks.

All the same, Powell claimed something for his African American constituents with each bill that was laid before him: this was the "Powell Amendment." It called for a stop of federal funds to any organization which practiced racial discrimination. As chairman he had great power to block Great Society legislation; he occasionally held his ground until the Powell Amendment was included in the bill.

As an African American politician and minister he was controversial; as a personality he was extravagant and irreverent. He liked the playboy image, the good life. His first wife was Isabel Washington, a Cotton Club dancer; he had to bully his father into consenting (1933). The marriage lasted ten years. "I fear I just outgrew her, " he said. Wife number two was Hazel Scott, a singer and pianist; they had a good life together from 1945 to 1960, when he divorced her. His third wife was Yvette Marjorie Flores Diago, a member of an influential Puerto Rican family. His affairs were front-page news.

In March 1960 he was interviewed on a television show. He happened to call Esther James a "bag woman" during a debate on police corruption. She sued. Powell refused to make a settlement. He ignored all seven subpoenas and eight years of legal battles. He was wanted for criminal contempt of court by New York State. Finally he escaped to Bimini (Bahamas) in 1966, taking his congressional receptionist, Corinne Huff (former Miss Ohio), with him. She had been with him on a trip on the Queen Mary to Europe in 1962 when she was 21, together with Tamara Hall (an associate labor counsel for Education and Labor). A select committee of the House recommended public censure for Powell, a loss of seniority (his chairmanship), and the dismissal of Huff. The House voted to exclude him altogether (March 1967).

At a special election two months later Powell received a stunning victory - and he did not even campaign in Harlem. Contributions from his supporters and profits from a phonograph record ("Keep the Faith, Baby") were used to pay the damages in the James suit. In March 1968 Powell returned to Harlem triumphantly, and in January 1969 he was seated in Congress yet again, although without seniority. The Supreme Court ruled that the House acted unconstitutionally when he was unseated. Powell quipped: "From now on, America will know the Supreme Court is the place where you can get justice."

In 1970 he was defeated in the Democratic primary. He died on April 4, 1972, of prostate cancer; his ashes were scattered over Bimini. His death caused a legal squabble between his current mistress and his estranged third wife. Powell was a pioneer civil rights worker 30 years before it was fashionable; his legacy to African Americans was his "sassiness."

Further Reading

For the best reading about this subject, see Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Adam by Adam (1971). Andy Jacobs' The Powell Affair: Freedom Minus One (1973) is the story of the vote in the House of Representatives (1967) which unseated Powell. There is an obituary in the New York Times, April 5, 1972, which provides additional information.

Powell Clayton
9th Governor of Arkansas
In office July 2, 1868 – March 4, 1871
Preceded by	Isaac Murphy
Succeeded by	Ozra Amander Hadley
United States Senator from Arkansas
In office March 24, 1871 – March 3, 1877
Preceded by	Alexander McDonald
Succeeded by	Augustus Garland
Born	August 7, 1833 Bethel, Pennsylvania
Died	August 23, 1914 (aged 81) Washington, D.C.
Political party	Republican
Military service
Service/branch	Union Army
Rank	Brigadier General
Unit	1st Regiment Kansas Volunteer Infantry 5th Cavalry Regiment
Battles/wars	American Civil War

Powell Clayton (August 7, 1833 – August 23, 1914) was an engineer, a Union Army general in the American Civil War, the first carpetbag Governor of the State of Arkansas, and Ambassador to Mexico during the administrations of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Civil War 3 Arkansas life and career 4 Later life 5 See also 6 References 7 Links

Early life

Clayton as a young man

Clayton was born in Bethel, Pennsylvania, to John and Ann Glover Clayton. He was a direct descendent of William Clayton, originally from Chichester, England,^[1][1] who was a close friend of George Fox, founder of the Quakers, and William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania. His father was an orchard keeper and carpenter and parents had ten children in all, although six died in infancy. He attended a private military academy in Bristol, Pennsylvania and later attended engineering school at Wilmington, Delaware.

Clayton moved to Kansas in 1855 and served as an engineer at Leavenworth, Kansas. On April 29, 1861, he is recorded as having a company of militia at Fort Leavenworth.

Civil War

In May 1861 Clayton was formally mustered into the Union Army as a captain of the 1st Kansas Infantry. In December 1861, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the 5th Kansas Cavalry and later to colonel in March 1862.

During the morning and early afternoon of October 25, 1863, Clayton was in command of federal troops occupying Pine Bluff, Arkansas. He successfully repulsed a three-pronged confederate attack of the forces of General John S. Marmaduke. Cotton bales hastily placed around the Pine Bluff courthouse and surrounding streets provided an effective barricade for the union defenders. Confederate loss was 41 killed, wounded, and captured. Clayton was appointed a brigadier general of volunteers on August 1, 1864.

During the war he served primarily in Arkansas and Missouri and fought in several other battles in those states.

Arkansas life and career

Powell fell in love with Arkansas and an Arkansas girl. He married Adaline McGraw of Helena and purchased a farm in Jefferson County with his brother William (W.H.H. Clayton). Arkansas was a violent place after the war with lynching’s, murders, and intimidation. Powell was told by other farmers that they would pretend to go along with reconstruction but would win back what they had lost through peaceful means. Powell decided he would stay out of conflicts and tend to his farm. When his neighbors became more and more threatening, he realized that he could not set quietly while Arkansas was burning.

In 1868 he was elected the first Republican governor of Arkansas. His tenure was marked with impressive financial growth and population increase although he was forced to declare martial law in the beginning. He was a strong advocate for education and railroad construction, and battling the Ku Klux Klan.

On September 9, 1868 Clayton lost his left hand while hunting outside Little Rock when his rifle discharged. ^[2]

Powell Clayton accepted election to the United States Senate once he was sure Arkansas was stable. While in the Senate, he worked with President Grant and his brother W.H.H. Clayton to redirect Judge Isaac Parker from Utah to Fort Smith. The legendary “Hanging Judge” along with U.S. Attorney Clayton are credited with bringing law and order to the region. W.H.H. Clayton was later instrumental in bringing statehood to Oklahoma.

Clayton returned to Arkansas and in 1882 established a home at Eureka Springs, Arkansas where he built the Crescent Hotels and established the Eureka Springs Railroad. Eureaka Springs quickly became a popular destination with Clayton's development of the area. A memorial to Clayton is still in place in downtown Eureka Springs.

Clayton's administration made progress in getting the University of Arkansas on its feet, establishing a system of education, and bringing railroads into the State. However his administration was also accused of corruption, was personally accused of criminal conduct and was the target of numerous attacks on his character. During his term he declared martial law and organized a State Militia and conducted military operations against the Ku Klux Klan.

His brother, John Middleton Clayton was assassinated in 1889 in Plumerville, Arkansas, in Conway County while attempting to dispute the outcome of his failed Congressional candidacy to Democrat Clifton R. Breckinridge. John had served on the original board of the University of Arkansas and was involved in picking the Fayetteville site and establishing the first branch in Pine Bluff. He served in both houses of the state legislature and was elected sheriff of Jefferson County five times. When he was assassinated, a large group traveled to Little Rock to accompany his body back to Pine Bluff. The Grand Army of the Republic Post was renamed in his honor.

Later life

Powell Clayton at age 79 at the 1912 Republican Presidential Convention in Chicago

Powell Clayton was appointed as Ambassador to Mexico in 1897 by President William McKinley and served in that position until 1905. In 1912 he moved to Washington, D.C..

Clayton was the author of The Aftermath of the Civil War in Arkansas, published posthumously in 1915.

Clayton died in Washington, D.C., and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

See also

American Civil War portal

United States Army portal

• List of American Civil War generals

References

1. ^ Clayton, Thomas J., Rambles and Reflections, Chester Pa. (1899), pp. 399-400
2. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=6hUUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA295

• Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture entry: Powell Clayton
• Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.

Links

• [Grave Stone at Arlington National Cemetery http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/pclayton.htm]

Political offices
Preceded by Isaac Murphy	Governor of Arkansas 1868–1871	Succeeded by Ozra Amander Hadley
United States Senate
Preceded by Alexander McDonald	United States Senator (Class 2) from Arkansas 1871–1877 Served alongside: Benjamin F. Rice, Stephen W. Dorsey	Succeeded by Augustus H. Garland
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Matt W. Ramsom	United States Ambassador to Mexico 1897–1905	Succeeded by Edwin H. Conger

v • d • e Governors of Arkansas Territorial (1819–1836) J. Miller · Izard · Crittenden · Pope · Fulton State (since 1836) J. Conway · Yell · Adams · Drew · Byrd · Roane · E. Conway · Rector · Flanagin · Murphy · Clayton · Hadley · Baxter · Brooks* · Baxter · Garland · W. Miller · Churchill · Berry · Hughes · Eagle · Fishback · Clarke · Jones · Davis · Little · Moore · Pindall · Martin · Donaghey · Robinson · Oldham · Futrell · Hays · Brough · McRae · Terral · Martineau · Parnell · Futrell · Bailey · Adkins · Laney · McMath · Cherry · Faubus · Rockefeller · Bumpers · Riley · Pryor · Purcell · Clinton · White · Clinton · Tucker · Huckabee · Beebe Italics indicates acting governor · * Disputed; see Brooks-Baxter War.

v • d • e United States Senators from Arkansas Class 2 Fulton • Ashley • Sebastian • McDonald • Clayton • Garland • Berry • Davis • Heiskell • Kavanaugh • Robinson • Miller • Spencer • McClellan • Hodges • D. Pryor • Hutchinson • M. Pryor Class 3 Sevier • Borland • Johnson • Mitchel • Rice • Dorsey • Walker • Jones • Clarke • Kirby • T. Caraway • H. Caraway • Fulbright • Bumpers • Lincoln

Persondata
NAME	Clayton, Powell
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Union Army general
DATE OF BIRTH	August 7, 1833
PLACE OF BIRTH	Bethel, Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH	August 23, 1914
PLACE OF DEATH	Washington, D.C.

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