Men of the Twentieth Century is the title king of the cats the life and times of Adam Clayton Powell, jr. Because it so aptly describes Adam Clayton Powell. He was smooth, he was cool, he was goodlooking, he was smart, and he always was a complete package that spoke eloquently for africanamericans and the poor in this country. One of the great things about this is not long ago we had a student come in who was looking for a biography of Adam Clayton Powell and there wasnt one. All the books about him were outofprint so it is a privilege to have king of the cats the life and times of Adam Clayton Powell, jr. Back in print. It is a privilege to have wil haygood here to talk about his book. Welcome. [applause] welcome, thank you. It is always nice to be here at this bookstore. They do treat me like i live in the neighborhood which i do, treat me as if i come here and do my book shopping which i do. I also notice there are these posters advertising the authors for the month of february. My picture is right in the center of the poster and it is so nice to have your picture on a poster and not be wanted by the law. Somebody was asking me the other day what was the most memorable moment of when the book was First Published in 1993 and there were a lot of wonderful moments. If it ranks with the event in columbus, ohio, which the mayor was a and a lot of people, i walks on stage and looks around and spotted the 3 ladies who turned me down to thy school from. I didnt ask it to stand up, i never had a car back in high school, things changed a little now, and American Express card and often travel by airplane. Life has turned out okay. Adam Clayton Powell. History is a phenomenal creature, graduated from high school in 1972, the year Adam Clayton Powell died and i just heard echoes about his life that he was a rogue, he never reached the height that he should have and that his life was a waste and that was sad, for some reason i got it in my mind after i went through high school and college and i was someplace and i was reading a periodical that talks about a program you might be familiar with, a federally funded program, in tough neighborhoods and offers scholarships to kids and you get to go to a prep school, a college in your tenth, eleventh, twelfth grade year to take added courses to get you ready to go to college, i got accepted into the Outward Bound program and came to find one of the principal sponsors with Adam Clayton Powell junior and it astonished me. And bought a postcard and tell that story and the new introduction here. I bought a postcard and it had Adam Clayton Powell sitting at a desk chairing one of his committees in washington and i looked at it and said to myself someday i am going to write a biography of Adam Clayton Powell. It was just a dream. I was in charleston, West Virginia on the writing staff, wanted to be on the writing staff, dreamed of being on the writing staff but i was a copy editor and i was dating a lady, schoolteacher in new york at a magazine store. I looked to her, Adam Clayton Powell, she laughed loud. I just got the phone turned off that weekend we were supposed to be going to red lobster that night and i had to d babe, do i spend this money to get my phone back or red lobster, i was in a serious dilemma and she didnt have faith and faith is a wonderful thing because i didnt know anybody in book publishing, didnt know any authors, i convinced myself i was going to write a book about congressman powell and life went on. I just finished college and got a job at macys. Lets not go a. In charleston, West Virginia and pittsburgh and the boston globe. The Mississippi River, a wonderful guy takes wonderful photographs and i was at the boston globe, we were called by a lack of monthly press, Peter Davison. I was sitting on my desk and do you have enough to write a book on the Mississippi River story . It is that moment the writer lives and dreams about and i said absolutely so i spend time and wrote a book about it in mississippi and then peter summoned me to his office. Sadly gone from this world, but he meant a whole lot to me. He called me to his office and what do you want to do next . That was my first thought. Allowing me to realize i was entering a world of book authors. I looked at it and said i want to write a biography of it, Adam Clayton Powell junior. Peter davidson grew silent and i said to myself, he thinks i have written one book and it is a travel book and maybe he thinks it is too much of a leap to do a subject like powell. Nobody, but nobody talks about Adam Clayton Powell junior anymore. I looked around the room and leaned over to me and said which is why you are going to do the book and that was an amazing moment Peter Davison allowed me to dive into a five year journey about this great congressman. Maybe you know the arc of his life born in new york, famous minister had a Adam Clayton Powell, a Good High School and then went to colgate. At colgate, there were four blacks on campus. Three of the blacks were looking for the fourth black, didnt find it. One of them, a gentleman named Daniel Crosby went into harlem. And had found out Adam Clayton Powell senior. And Daniel Crosby runs back to the campus and suggest what. And white or black. And the biographer looks for that are. The upheavals in someones life. Two of the blacks confronted powell. They were going to tell his father and there were levels on the campus and he should not be trying to hide who really want who he really wasnt there was an explosive moment for powell. Over the next four years he became fast friends with these guys and took them into harlem and introduced them to harlem renaissance, jazz people and thinkers and artists and writers. At the end of his four years at colgate, had charmed them, reduce them to his side and to him it was a prank, something he would never do again and he spent the rest of his life fighting to prove to people he stood for the good fight, for equal rights, the downtrodden and i will read you a little section here about his last days at colgate. I think it was a very Pivotal Moment for powell. He had a great sense of humor. He was traveling on a train in 1932 a couple years after college and he was in georgia and the trains were segregated but powell walked into the first compartment. One of the people who worked for the train ran up and told one of the highlevel people at this train stop i think a black guy might have walked into the first class section, better go down there and check it out. He runs into the first class section and yells and says i believe there is nigger, and Adam Clayton Powell stand up and goes where, where, where . What kind of trainer you running . So he has astonishing with, knew how to think on his feet. These are his last moments at colgate where he lost himself and found himself. Colgate had provided his last chance and he had endured. The trees were growing again. The valley is lush as always in early summer. Now looking back on colgate for powell. He would attend he continue to invite classmates to harlem, one would last, Daniel Crosby encouraging fellow blacks to allow powell to win. Crosby, the darkest skinned black on campus, Football Player who stayed behind when the team went south. Powells senior year had been so accomplished that he was excused from taking final examinations whose the reward for outstanding academic achievement, those classmates who doubted him now had the last laugh. John homan delivers the class upon, each senior given a small leather booklet at the senior program. Torches yet to be lit. Singing the alma mater. They gathered on the hillside, Walking Around the lake, lighting the torch with his own until all were aflame. Dusk turned to darkness, reflection of flames bouncing across the lake made it look like there was fire beneath the wire, the same with the majestic problem of the majestic nation seemed far far away. Along with other seniors Adam Clayton Powell junior knelt and dipped his torch in the water with the flame doused, he walked out into the world. He goes back to harlem and gets the job at his fathers church, tickets into Department Stores that wont allow blacks to shop. He becomes a rebel, runs for new york city council. He wins, starts traveling all over the nation. He marries isabel powell, who is a jazz singer like church lady. The marriage doesnt last. He starts having an affair with hazel scott. It creates turmoil inside the church. After one Church Service a lady comes back. Adam Clayton Powell, i am so embarrassed. I thought you were a man of the cloth and Adam Clayton Powell says i am, silk. He fought with harry truman and Dwight Eisenhower and john kennedy and Lyndon Johnson before the end of his life he would pass and have them attached to 65 major deals, medicare, medicaid, food stamps, art programs, the upward bound program. He never got along well with southerners. He could not find it in himself. The life of Martin Luther king junior. In 1956 there was this wonderful rally of Madison Square garden, king and many of his followers were there. But it was new york, a congressman, expected to be treated righteously. A little bit about that event, that rally. It was with a degree of fanfare that a massive civil rights rally was staged at Madison Square garden on may 20 fourth 1956. Eleanor roosevelt, a philip randolph, corey wilson and powell. The familiar gang of four knew the hall will, participated in many rallies under its old roof. In the midst of this rally, a philip randolph, Adam Clayton Powell, had yet to arrive. Many in the audience came here, randolph, found out powell was across the street waiting in a hotel to make an entrance. Randolph realized there was nothing to do except wait and hope. Ralph, another speaker, was at the lectern, a garden, lights flicked off. Slight tremors and nervousness ran through the crowd. All of a sudden the spotlight came on and zoomed to the back of the garden to land on a tall figure standing alone, Adam Clayton Powell. The garden erupted. His Abyssinian Church members erupted and he stood still, then he began walking, cutting a swath down the middle of the garden, spotlight trailing every step of the way. Chats exploded we want adam, we want adam. Adam Clayton Powell. And wanted others to remember his new york city, Madison Square garden. There were 16,000 people gathered to hear him speak. He played to the partisan crowd for all it was worth. Powell spoke and spoke and spoke. Walked to the lectern and laid it down for powell to read. Dear adam, Mister Randolph wants you to know two things. Mrs. Roosevelt has yet to speak. He heaved his chest out a little more in the congressman said i have a note here and anyone wants to know who he is . He says we have to be out of here by 10 30, never heard about freedom. The only reason to leave, we have to pay more money to stay. Everybody in here in favor of freedom raise your hand. Thousands and thousands went up. If we want to stay here until noon tomorrow we will stay and speak to this nation, paid to our freedom. Abyssinian Baptist Church will pick up the check. And he walked off. Martin luther king jr. They would not forget Adam Clayton Powell when he returned south, randolph received a bill in the mail for 6,000. The extra hours for the Madison Square garden attendance. John f. Kennedy admired powell a great deal. When john f. Kennedy was elected Adam Clayton Powell became chairman of the education committee, two separate committees, he was very very powerful and under Lyndon Johnson actually the legislation began to gush forth. The war on poverty, we owe much of its success to powell. He also had a side that was somewhat dark. He didnt hire to he put his third wife on the payroll, she was from san juan, puerto rico. And so undisciplined when it comes to ethics. The ethics bill largely called of Adam Clayton Powell junior. They were not big epic crimes we know from the headlines we read about now but at the time, powell had so many southern enemies that his crimes were explosive fodder for headline writers. He was expelled from congress and ethics violations after 24 years in the house, took the case to the Supreme Court and he won, told the u. S. Congress you did a great injustice to Adam Clayton Powell and the voters of harlem. They elected him. You should have let him come back to take his seat and could have had ethics hearings. And the end he came back, had cancer, he had lost his power, he was no longer a Senior Member of the house. He fished on his boat and sailed out into the blue yonder all alone. This last part that i will share with you is about the last days and times of Adam Clayton Powell. He was on a barnstorming tour of various colleges in 1969. The students loved him. He was like an old rebel. Those who thought him radical for the wrong reasons should have been on the university of michigan campus in 1969. By then he lost the power. By then he believed in the youth. This is a nation i am proud of, he told the students seated in front of him, damn the cancer limply in his hand, dont take some of the things i have said tonight to me and i dont love america, i do. Because france had wondered how Adam Clayton Powell could take to the water on his boat and drift for hours and hours in silence having led a life of chaos and challenge. And the end he sauce only quiet. My life has been devoted to carrying the heavy end of the law he once said and catching the big fish. The comment represented more than a metaphorical sense, a life fully lived, weeks before he had been airlifted to miami, Adam Clayton Powell engaged an epic battle wearing a white glove on his left hands, always a better style, he leaned over the side as the fish pulled him from his chair. As a young boy, Adam Clayton Powell junior held an affection his entire life. Marthas vineyard and long island sound, the great lakes of germany and cerro gordo in puerto rico. The rushing and receiving fast made them the way the bottles swept out from dry land into the distance. So wide open out there, so free. Well, im the cat who grew up to write sweet king of the cats thank you very much. [applause] if you have questions, use the mic you at the center. I wonder if i could just make a few comments. I worked with him for a number of years in the congress at his height and there was something called the powell amendment which was attached to everything that related to puerto rico and also related to education. The ethics teardown of the four speech that he gave in response is probably a lesson that would be well served today because it was retribution by a racist congress in the sense they had to punish him because theyre getting static back home that they were not putting him down. He said you all do it, you know it and you wont look at yourselves, so i am your mirror. And it was true. Absolutely true. He was among the most delicate, thoughtful, important people in congress, notwithstanding himself. Yes, at his proclivities. But on the other hand, when rivers was running around naked on the second floor of the rayburn building trunk as a skunk by six nobody says anything at soda gives a relativity of the cars today. But his reach and what you read was really, really and what you wrote was really important because the fat is it that kids just dont understand and they dont know and they are falling away from our government and our congress, and there are no heroes. So he is a hero in the remarkable way because at a time when nobody was doing anything and it wasnt the king and nobody else he was there in the face of congress. And everything everything, he chaired everything. Picky talked about was for righteousness and justice. Thats true. You done good. Thank you. Thank you. How are you doing . I miles fisher and i just wanted to say, i want to commend you for putting the book out on kang i mean on adam powell. I think that what is happening in america over the king years that we have, the press has overproduced the whole attention of the movement that was, rosa parks and their forgotten people like adam powell who set it up for everybody. And history for the 20th century will say that what adam powell did when people in the lecture are, will say anything vaguely did for civil rights in the history of this country, and jeff to also look at it from the standpoint