Isabel Washington

Publicity photo of Isabel Geraldine Washington and an unknown piano player, circa 1920s.

She and her sister Fredericka (Fredi) Washington) were born in Savannah, Georgia, and traveled with their family to Harlem, New York in the Great Migration. While dancing at the Cotton Club, Isabel met her future husband, Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, to whom she was married from 1933 until their divorce in 1945.

Isabel Washington Powell, gave up the nightclub and Broadway stage to marry Adam Clayton Powell Jr.

The Powells divorced in 1945 after 12 years of marriage and she never remarried, saying no one could match the charismatic minister and political leader.

"I so admire the things he did," she said in 2002. "And we had such fun. Those 12 years were the best anyone could have."

Born in Savannah, Georgia, Isabel and her sister Fredi became popular performers in New York. Isabel played the "other woman" in Bessie Smith's only film, "St. Louis Blues," and she was dancing at the Cotton Club when Powell first saw her.

Powell's minister father objected to his marrying a showgirl. But their wedding at Abyssinian Baptist Church, where Powell Sr. was the pastor, drew 3,000 spectators.

After the divorce, Isabel became a special education teacher, volunteered, did occasional performing and remained the center of a large social circle both in the city and on Martha's Vineyard.

"My only problem is I don't have enough room on my calendar for everything I want to do," she said in 2002.

While she and Powell were married he had an affair with entertainer, Hazel Scott who he married in 1945 and divorced in 1956. Powell died in 1972.

She died twenty-two days before her 99th birthday on May 1, 2007.

NY Daily News, David Hinckley; Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NYPL