It was sooo cold that I was skeptical about anyone coming out to the Abyssinian Baptist Church on Saturday, but members of the Alpha Kappa Kappa Sorority, Inc. showed up in force, some smartly attired in pink and green. More than 100 braved the frigid air to support their sorority sister, national bestselling author and winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature ReShonda Tate. “Thank you all for coming out today in this 10-degree weather!” Tate beamed. “I wouldn’t come out to see me on a 10-degree day, so I sincerely thank you all!”
For more than two hours, Tate signed books between “spilling tea” with Kimberly Godwin who, as president of ABC News before retiring two years ago, was the first-ever Black woman to lead a major American broadcast news network. Their focus, the subject of Tate’s newest work, “With Love from Harlem,” was the passionate, tempestuous and much talked about clandestine love affair-turned-marriage of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and Hazel Scott.
Their romance was a humdinger! Powell was married when he first met Scott while out on the town with his wife. Succeeding his father, Adam Powell was also the pastor of Harlem’s most notable congregation, the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church. While refusing to abandon the pulpit, in quick succession he also became Harlem’s first Black City Councilmember, and then the area’s long-serving Congressional representative.
Because Isabel Washington had been married previously and divorced, his first marriage had already raised eyebrows. The first Mrs. Powell, the sister of Black Hollywood movie star Freddie Washington, had a son and was a Broadway showgirl to boot.
Scott, by contrast, was born in Trinidad and a classically trained pianist and singer who’d been a child prodigy. Unwelcome in concert halls, her career took off when she jazzed up her classical repertoire for nightclub performances. Famously and theatrically, she would play two pianos simultaneously, dressed in stunning evening gowns. As the “other woman” turned wife, she too, at first, was harshly judged.
Something each member of this asymmetrical triangle shared in common was activist resistance in the face of racist treatment. “Hazel Scott made it a point to refuse to perform before segregated audiences.” Tate told Goodwin. “They were that great Black power couple, living large, beautifully dressed, with fine cars, servants, and elegant homes. Both were Black stars in their own right. They lived and acted like white stars did, so naturally they were resented. But starring on the silver screen, appearing on the radio, and selling records across race lines, Hazel, a Black woman with a gentler influence, was the more feared.
Audience members eagerly purchase a book. Credit: Michael Henry Adams photos 
Kim Goodwin maintains a lively repartee. Credit: Michael Henry Adams photos 
Tate smiles in relating that initially, Hazel Scott was cast to star in “Paris Blues.” Credit: Michael Henry Adams photos 
Attentive pink-and-green–clad Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority members. Credit: Michael Henry Adams photos 
Both before and after talk, long line of fans wait to get their books signed. 
Reshonda Tate smiles with her daughter and assistant Mya Billingsley. Credit: Michael Henry Adams photos
“Picketing white-owned stores that only hired Blacks for menial jobs, challenging discrimination right and left and then in Congress, repeatedly reintroducing his anti-lynching bill, Rev. Powell was far more the full-time hell-raiser than his wife. Nonetheless, with celebrity friends around the world, and [as] the first African American to have her own TV variety show, Hazel was the one branded a Communist and driven out of the country.”
Tate added that “they were larger than life and each, in their way, was heroic,” but conceded, “Like everyone else, both were human. Each was flawed. I had an impulse to shield their reputation … but l wanted to keep these characters raw and relatable … doing my research, I’d learn about Hazel seeing Adam in public with another woman and I’d be saying to her, ‘Hazel, don’t leave! Girl, confront them! Black women don’t leave!’ But she had to handle it in her own way! When it was over, she got involved with and married a man and repeated so many of the same mistakes. I left that out, but how many of us have done that?”
Mostly women, mostly Alpha Kappa Alphas, and mostly congregants of New York’s second oldest congregation, Tate’s audience was spellbound. “What,” asked Goodwin, “was Hazel’s legacy for you?” As Tate replied thoughtfully, one could have heard a pin drop. “I found it fascinating … she was the one who had to pay the price. I want people to remember her story…She was more than a woman who played two pianos. She showed Nina Simone how to overcome the resistance to Blacks in classical music. Back then, they wanted to erase Hazel and Adam. Now they are trying to make us all disappear, but like Hazel, I refuse to let them win …”