Powell, Adam Clayton, Sr (1865-1953)

US Protestant clergyman. At the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York, New York, from 1908-37 he preached racial pride and became a leader of the black American community. He helped found the Urban League and was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's first board of directors.

Powell was born in Franklin County, Virginia. The son of a recently freed slave and a German planter killed during the Civil War, he migrated to Ohio in 1884 and was converted at a revival meeting. He graduated from Wayland Seminary, Washington, DC, in 1892 and held pastorates in New Haven and Connecticut before he moved to New York.