Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (November 29, 1908 -- April 4, 1972) was an American politician and pastor who represented Harlem, New York City, in the United States House of Representatives (1945--71). About the book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0689120621/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0689120621&linkCode=as2&tag=tra0c7-20&linkId=6c2ed70ad12e6a71f257351721c325fd

He was the first person from New York of African American descent to be elected to Congress, and he became a powerful national politician.
In 1961, after sixteen years in the House, Powell became chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, the most powerful position held by an African American in Congress. As Chairman, he supported the passage of important social legislation under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Following allegations of corruption, in 1967 Powell was excluded from his seat by Democratic Representatives-elect of the 90th Congress, but he was re-elected and regained the seat in a 1969 United States Supreme Court ruling in Powell v. McCormack.

As one of only two black Congressmen (the other being William Levi Dawson)[13] until 1955, Powell challenged the informal ban on black representatives using Capitol facilities reserved for white members.[11] He took black constituents to dine with him in the "Whites Only" House restaurant. He clashed with the many segregationists in his party. Since the late 19th century, Southern Democrats commanded a one-party system in most of the South, as they had effectively disfranchised most blacks from voting after regaining power in the late 19th century. The white Congressmen and Senators controlled all the seats allocated for the total population in the southern states, had established seniority, and commanded many important committee chairs in the House and Senate.
Powell worked closely with Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr., the NAACP representative in Washington, to try to gain justice in federal programs. Hamilton described the NAACP as "the quarterback that threw the ball to Powell, who, to his credit, was more than happy to catch and run with it."[12] He developed a strategy known as the "Powell Amendments." "On bill after bill that proposed federal expenditures, Powell would offer 'our customary amendment,' requiring that federal funds be denied to any jurisdiction that maintained segregation; Liberals would be embarrassed, Southern politicians angered."[12] This principle would later become integrated into Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Powell was willing to act independently; in 1956, he broke party ranks and supported President Dwight D. Eisenhower for re-election, saying the civil rights plank in the Democratic Party platform was too weak. In 1958, he survived a determined effort by the Tammany Hall Democratic Party machine in New York to oust him in the primary election. In 1960, Powell, hearing of planned civil rights marches at the Democratic Convention, which could embarrass the party or candidate, threatened to accuse Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. of having a homosexual relationship with Bayard Rustin unless the marches were cancelled. Bayard was one of King's political advisers and an openly gay man. King agreed to cancel the planned events and Rustin resigned from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.[14]

In 1961, after 15 years in Congress, Powell became chairman of the powerful House Education and Labor Committee. In this position, he presided over federal social programs for minimum wage and Medicaid (established later under Johnson); he expanded the minimum wage to include retail workers; and worked for equal pay for women; he supported education and training for the deaf, nursing education, and vocational training; he led legislation for standards for wages and work hours; as well as for aid for elementary and secondary education, and school libraries.[11] Powell's committee proved extremely effective in enacting major parts of President Kennedy's "New Frontier" and President Johnson's "Great Society" social programs and the War on Poverty. It successfully reported to Congress "49 pieces of bedrock legislation", as President Johnson put it in an May 18, 1966 letter congratulating Powell on the fifth anniversary of his chairmanship.[16]
Powell was instrumental in passing legislation that made lynching a federal crime, as well as bills that desegregated public schools. He challenged the Southern practice of charging Blacks a poll tax to vote, but electoral practices were not changed substantially in most of the South until after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which provided federal oversight of voter registration and elections, and enforcement of the constitutional right to vote.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Clayton_Powell,_Jr.