Top 15 Quotes & Sayings by Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American politician Adam Clayton Powell, Jr..
Last updated on December 5, 2024.
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was an American Baptist pastor and politician who represented the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the United States House of Representatives from 1945 until 1971. He was the first African American to be elected to Congress from New York, as well as the first from any state in the Northeast. Re-elected for nearly three decades, Powell became a powerful national politician of the Democratic Party, and served as a national spokesman on civil rights and social issues. He also urged United States presidents to support emerging nations in Africa and Asia as they gained independence after colonialism.

During past years, like frightened children, we were afraid to eat the strong meat of human rights and instead sucked the milk of civil rights from the breasts of white liberals, black Uncle Toms, and Aunt Jemimas.
Only legislative, judicial, and executive action can completely guarantee the victory of the free world.
I am proud to be a member of the Congress of the United States.
I believe that Christianity in the United States has been dragging its feet, and I don't think there's any other force in America that has been more detrimental to the solution of our racial problems than Christianity.
Tremendous changes are taking place in our country, eradicating the concept of second-class citizenship.
The black masses must demand and refuse to accept nothing less than that proportionate percentage of the political spoils such as jobs, elective offices and appointments... They must reject the shameful racial tokenism that characterizes the political life of America today.
I'm advocating that American citizens interested in democracy should stay out of chain stores.
Where Negroes provide 20 percent of the vote, they should have 20 per cent of the jobs. — © Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
Where Negroes provide 20 percent of the vote, they should have 20 per cent of the jobs.
It's never the right time to take a particular stand.
There is no future for a people who deny their past.
We have produced a world of contented bodies and discontented minds. — © Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
We have produced a world of contented bodies and discontented minds.
No one can say Christianity has failed. It has never been tried.
The black man continues on his way. He plods wearily no longer-he is striding freedom road with the knowledge that if he hasn't got the world in a jug, at least he has the stopper in his hand.
Press forward at all times, climbing forward toward that higher ground of the harmonious society that shapes the laws of man to the laws of God.
I am the product of the sustained indignation of a branded grandfather, the militant protest of my grandmother, the disciplined resentment of my father and mother, and the power of the mass action of the church.
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