Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the powerful Black congressman from New York, created yet another challenge when he attacked King in the press, calling him a “captive of socialist interests,” as The Pittsburgh Courier put it, for his close ties to advisers Levison and Rustin. King, Rustin, and A. Philip Randolph were planning to picket the upcoming Democratic and Republican national conventions. Powell opposed the protests, and he leveled a private threat: call off the pickets, or he would publicly allege that King and Rustin were lovers.
