The Pursuit of Audacious Power: Rebel Reformers and Neighborhood Politics in Baltimore, 1966–1968

Abstract

On February 27,1966, Rep. Adam Clayton Powell spoke at a Fourth District Democratic Organization’s $15-a-plate fundraiser held in the ballroom of the Lord Baltimore Hotel. The black organization was a major political club in west Baltimore’s predominantly black Fourth District. Alongside criticizing middle-class black people for being more concerned with cotillions, sipping martinis in suburban homes, and distancing themselves from their “deprived black brothers and sisters,” the black New York congressman told the 1,000 attendees at the posh affair, “If there is one thing in which I believe, it is the pursuit of audacious power— I would urge black people in America to pursue audacious power—the power to make decisions which control the affairs of your city and your state.“¹ Dressed in a blue suit and chain-smoking, Powell continued, “All my life I have pursued audacious power...and it has upset many of my good white friends... you see, very few white people can accept us when we move out of our prisons of shoe-shuffling, head-bowed, Uncle Tomism.“²