Mar. 23, 1963 - Representative Adam Clayton Powell, Harlem Democrat, today called for a Negro boycott of the NAACP on the grounds the organization has whites in high positions. Powell told some 2,500 persons attending a “human rights crusade rally” in Harlem that Negroes should boycott all Negro racial-political organizations “not totally controlled by us.” “Anything we get,” the Negro congressman said, “we will have to fight for, to seize for ourselves. We will invade the white man’s heaven, the United States.” He described Malcolm X, national spokesman for the Nation of Islam, as a friend, adding: “He may be a Black Muslim, and there is a difference of views. But his is not a subversive organization.” “I am not here for votes,” Powell said. “This is not an election year. I don’t ever intend to campaign again, and I hope to stay in Congress as long as the ‘crackers’ don’t like me.” “There are no Negroes in the American Jewish Congress or in the national organizations of Italians — and show me a black Irishman, if you will. We should all work together and fight together and boycott together,” he said. “There’s a great day coming.” Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP, said later on NBC News: “Congressman Powell is way off base. Both Negroes and whites are helping the NAACP in its fight toward equality for Negroes.” Wilkins described Powell as a “problem child among Negroes” and asserted that he was “far-out, as they say in Harlem.”
