Investigations: Snakes in Adam's Eden

"I'm just a poor, humble parish priest, baby." The speaker was Adam Clayton Powell, the Democratic Congressman from Harlem and the pastor of its Abyssinian Baptist Church.

Poor? Humble?

Adam Clayton Powell is no ordinary clergyman — or Congressman. He spends much of his time these days cavorting in a Bahamian hideaway with a beauty queen that he has put on his payroll. He is a fugitive from his own district, where he faces a year and four months in jail for defying a $164,000 libel judgment. He is seen only sporadically in Congress,...

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