"He was a charming rascal"
"Adam Clayton Powell" is a biography of the civil rights leader, congressman and preacher who was, for a time, the most powerful black man in America. However, his portrait on "The American Experience" is unusual because it's not all goodness and light but also shows a dark side of the man...sort of a 'warts and all biography'.
The show follows Adam Clayton Powell from his college days until his death from cancer in 1972. He is a complex man...a great civil rights leader who demanded equality for all...but also whose appetites for women and self-aggrandizement were also his ultimate undoing.
The show seemed very well made. It could have only focused on the good or only the bad but instead gave a rather full picture of the man...something you often DON'T see in TV biographies. Well worth seeing and never dull!