Powell, Isabel Washington, 1908-2007

Biographical Statement

Isabel Washington Powell was a singer, actress, and later a teacher and social service family worker for the New York City Public School system. She gave up her stage career after meeting Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr, to whom she was married from 1933-1945.

Isabel Washington Powell, born in Savannah, Georgia, on May 23, 1908, was one of nine children of Robert T. and Harriet Walker Ward Washington. Her sister, Fredi, also became an actress. Fredi and Isabel's mother died when they were young, and both were sent to school at St. Elizabeth's Convent in Cornwell Heights, Pennsylvania. Much like her sister, Powell performed as a singer and actress during the 1920s and 1930s, appearing at the Club Alabam' and various nightclubs in New York City, including the Cotton Club, as well as singing shorts for Warner Brothers and R-K-O and touring New England and Midwestern theatres of the Loew's Circuit.

She married Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in 1933, and Powell adopted her son, Preston Jr., from a previous marriage to Washington, DC, photographer Preston Webster. Although Powell Jr.'s family objected to the marriage, the couple remained married for 12 years until divorcing in 1945. During the 1960s to the 1980s, she worked as a social service family worker and teacher for New York City Public School system. Isabel Washington Powell passed away on May 1, 2007.

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