Adam Clayton Powell on AllMovie

Civil rights activist Julian Bond narrates this Academy Award-nominated documentary profile of the charismatic American civil rights leader who taunted the white establishment, desegregated congress, and smeared the beloved Martin Luther King, Jr. before going into self-imposed exile on the island of Bimini. Beginning his career as the pastor of Harlem's gigantic Abyssinian Baptist Church, Adam Clayton Powell began an improbable climb to power that was both illustrious and controversial. But Powell's fall was equally spectacular, and in this documentary, filmmaker Richard Kilberg spares no details in his efforts to investigate the true nature of power, politics, and personality as related to the man who remains a pivotal figure in history despite his personal flaws.