Adam Clayton Powell announces resignation

One hundred years ago today … From the pulpit of the Abyssinian Baptist Church (then on West 40th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues) Adam Clayton Powell Sr. announced his resignation as pastor, shocking congregants.

According to Vernon Calvin Mitchell, Jr., Powell’s announcement might have been an attempt to get the church’s financial backers to make good on their promises to move the congregation to a new site in Harlem. If so, it worked. “A little after two weeks of reading his letter of resignation, Abyssinian sold the 40th Street property for two hundred thousand dollars” (Mitchell 153).

Note: we featured the Abyssinian Baptist Church and its planned move to 138th Street and 7th Avenue for our April 10, 1920 post.  

Powell had been Pastor since 1908. Whatever his intention on this day a century ago, he remained in the position until 1936.

Sources/Further reading:

Mitchell, Vernon Calvin Jr.. JAZZ AGE JESUS: THE REVEREND ADAM CLAYTON POWELL, SR., AND THE MINISTRY OF BLACK EMPOWERMENT, 1865-1937. Dissertation, Cornell University, 2014. Ecommons.

– Jonathan Goldman, Dec 11, 2021

TAGS: Black History, African Americans, Harlem Renaissance, church, religion, Christian, clergy