New York City is about to send its first Negro to Congress. The Congressman may be a woman. That the new Congressman will be a Negro is almost certain, because a newly carved Congressional District will include all of Harlem and not much else. But if the woman candidate is to win, she will have to beat one of the slickest spellbinders Harlem has ever produced.
The woman is stately Sara Pelham Speaks, who will be 41 on Election Day. An attractive Harlem politico with an upswept hairdo, she is a criminal lawyer, wife of a Harlem physician, mother of a four-year-old son. She has been in politics almost all her life. Her father ran a Negro newspaper in Washington, D.C. Last week the Harlem Republican Organization made her its nominee.
Next day, in a hurriedly called press luncheon in Harlem's swank Hotel Theresa, she told newsmen: "I was frightened when I first heard I was chosen to run—for about 15 minutes. But I'm not frightened any more." Her soft-spoken husband, Dr. F. Douglas Speaks, proudly served drinks from a side table. Said Mrs. Speaks: "You have to work with people to put any program over. I do not believe that there is too much that a Negro Congressman can do alone in Washington." Her platform, however, includes a proposal to revise the 14th Amendment so that southern states that disfranchise Negroes will have their Congressional representation cut.
"The Women Love Him." Sara Speaks's formidable Democratic opponent is the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who succeeded his father as pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church. Its 10,173 members are reportedly the largest Protestant congregation in the U.S. Tall (6 ft. 4 in.) and young (35), Adam Powell has been successively a javelin thrower at Colgate University, a redcap in Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal, a New York City councilman. He has also led several Harlem picketlines, and edits an aggressive tabloid, The People's Voice. Handsome in a gates-ajar collar, Powell makes a hell-raising speech, likes to kiss the womenfolk in the congregation afterward. His secretary says proudly: "All the women love him."
As the campaign began, Sara Speaks scored the first victory. At his own first press conference (with drinks from the pantry-bar in his four-story Harlem house) Dr. Powell said: "I will represent the Negro first, and all other Americans next." Quickly Sara Speaks, who knows that there are also about 31,000 Irish, Italians, Puerto Ricans and Spaniards in the new district, said: "My major concern will be for all of the people of my district."