BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for May 5.

Adam Clayton Powell Sr. was born.

He was an American pastor who developed the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, 

New York as the largest Protestant congregation in the country, with 10,000 members.

He was a founder of the National Urban League, active in the NAACP and several fraternal organizations, and served as trustee of several historically black colleges and schools.

Powell was ordained a Baptist minister in 1892; he served at churches in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New Haven, Connecticut between 1892 and 1908.

From 1908 until 1936, he served as pastor of the century-old Abyssinian Baptist Church.

During the Great Depression, Powell waged successful campaigns to feed the poor and to create better employment opportunities and city services for African Americans.

Powell's son, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., succeeded his father as pastor at the church in 1937 after working with him for several years as an assistant.

Learn black history, teach black history at blackfacts.com