Adam Clayton Powell, Sr.

Adam Clayton Powell, (May 5, 1865 – June 12, 1953) was an American pastor who developed the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York as the largest Protestant congregation in the country, with 10,000 members. He was a community activist, author, and the father of Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Born into poverty in southwestern Virginia, Powell worked to put himself through school and Wayland Seminary, where he was ordained in 1892.

After serving in churches in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and New Haven, Connecticut, Powell was called as pastor to Abyssinian Baptist, where he served from 1908-1936. During the Great Migration of blacks out of the rural South, thousands of blacks moved to New York and Harlem became the center of African-American life in the city. During his tenure, Powell supervised the purchase of land, fundraising, and the construction of a much larger church and facilities. He was a founder of the National Urban League, active in the NAACP and several fraternal organizations, and served as trustee of several historically black colleges and schools.

Adam Clayton Powell was born near Martin's Mill on Maggodee Creek, in Franklin County, Virginia. This was in the Piedmont, above the fall line of the Roanoke River. His mother Sally Dunning (b. 1842-1848-d. ?), a free woman of color, named her first son after her older brother Adam Dunning. He headed the family as a farmer. In 1860 Sallie was living with her mother Maildred, aunt Mary, and large family, including her grandmother Hannah; all the family were free mulattoes. Powell wrote in his autobiography that his mother never told him who his father was. He described her mother, Mildred Dunning (later listed as Malinda Dunnon, in the 1880 census), as "mostly Indian." Mildred was still living with her daughter and family past 1880, so he knew her well. Powell showed his partial European ancestry, as he was fair and blue-eyed. Two years after Adam's birth, in 1867 his mother Sally married Anthony Bush (b. abt. 1845-d. 1937), a mulatto freedman (former slave). In the 1870 census, he used the surname Dunning, as did his and Sally's children.

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