Early Years
Powell (birth name: Adam Clayton Powell Diago) was born to Civil Rights leader and former congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and his third wife Yvette Diago in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Powell's maternal grandfather Gonzalo Diago was a mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico and served as such from 1941 to 1945. When his parents separated, Powell's mother was granted custody, and he was raised and educated in Puerto Rico. Powell has an older half-brother, Adam Clayton Powell III.
In 1980, Powell changed his name to Adam Clayton Powell IV when he moved to the United States to study at Howard University in Washington, DC. (He is often confused with his nephew, also named Adam Clayton Powell IV, son of Adam Clayton Powell III). He later earned a law degree from Fordham University in New York.
Read more about this topic: Adam Clayton Powell IV (politician)
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