Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (November 29, 1908 – April 4, 1972) was a Baptist pastor and an American politician, who represented Harlem, New York City, in the United States House of Representatives (1945–71). He was the first person of African-American descent to be elected from New York to Congress. Oscar Stanton De Priest of Illinois was the first black to be elected to Congress in the 20th century; Powell was the fourth. Blacks in the South were disenfranchised and excluded from politics until after passage of civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s.