SOURCE: "Harlem: A Report to the Mayor and Advice from a Columnist," in Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.: The Political Biography of an American Dilemma, Atheneum, 1991, pp. 55-69.

An American educator, nonfiction writer, and biographer, Hamilton frequently writes on twentieth-century political and social issues, particularly as they relate to race. In the excerpt below, he discusses Powell's work as a newspaper columnist in the late 1930s.

[Following his highly visible and apparently well-received articles in the New York Post, Powell] began a weekly column in the Amsterdam News in February 1936, entitled "The Soap Box." Harlem's readers, as well as Abyssinian's parishioners and the episodic band of local activists

he associated with, now would have his words coming to them on a regular basis. Clearly, after only six active years out of college, he was becoming one of the identifiable young leaders in a community seething...