November 29 will be the 100th anniversary of the birth of the black preacher known as "Mr. Civil Rights". No, I'm not talking about Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., although this man was named after his preacher father.

Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr, was conducting civil rights demonstrations when Dr. King was still a child in the 30's. As assistant pastor at his father's Abyssinian Baptist Church he was in charge of providing food and clothing to those who couldn't afford them, on one occasion he even gave the shoes he was wearing to a man who couldn't find his size in the used clothing.

When he succeeded his father in 1935 it was the largest Protestant congregation in America. The church itself began as a protest against the segregated seating at New York City's First Baptist Church in 1808. A century later the church would call Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., to be its pastor.

Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., recognized that providing food and clothing wasn't the best way to help people, so he began an effort to get jobs for blacks. His Coordinating Committee for Employment used mass protests such as his "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work" campaign to persuade various businesses, including Harlem Hospital, to hire more blacks. In 1941 he used a bus boycott to force the hiring of 200 more blacks by the transit authority. In 1941 he integrated the New York City City Council when he was elected as its first black member.

In 1944, he became the first northern black from a state other than Illinois to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., informed Congress: "I'm the first bad Negro they've had in Congress." The other black Representative, William Dawson of Chicago, had avoided challenging the status quo.

Powell promptly integrated the House dining room and barber shop. He persuaded other members of Congress to stop using the n- word on the floor of Congress. He pushed for an end to segregation in the military and the District of Columbia and invented the "Powell Amendment" which, if successfully attached to legislation, prohibited racial discrimination in the use of federal funds. Many years later a similar provision later was adopted to require equal treatment for women.

Later he played a major role in getting President John Kennedy's New Frontier and President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society legislation passed.

Unfortunately, late in his career he succumbed to the temptations to misuse power and was eventually expelled from Congress for corrupt activities. Charles Rangel subsequently replaced him. Powell died on April 4, 1972.

The focus on Dr. Martin Luther King's contributions has obscured the fact that King didn't start the fight to end segregation, he merely carried that fight to the south where the resistance was greatest. Rep. Adam Clayton Powell didn't start the fight either, but he escalated it. As a preacher he demonstrated that public protests and boycotts could change the situation. As a member of Congress he began the difficult process of changing government racial policies. Perhaps the military would have been integrated without his efforts, but his support certainly helped. He forced President Harry Truman, who needed the black vote in the north, and others to deal with the issue of racial discrimination.

The Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education didn't happen in a vacuum. Charles Sumner had argued before the Massachusetts high court that "separate but equal" was impossible a century earlier in the Roberts case which had served as a precedent for the ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson. Society had changed, at least outside the south.

Integration was the coming thing. The nation's principle government organization, the military, had been integrated as had its most popular sport, baseball. Men like Rep. Adam Clayton Powell were demonstrating that they no longer considered racial discrimination acceptable.

I don't have time right now to check to see if any of those newspaper editors and columnists who are calling for Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens to resign are also endorsing Sen. Barack Obama. If any are doing both they are hypocrites and probably partisan or even racist.

Sen. Ted Stevens was recently convicted of not reporting various gifts and home remodeling work from a powerful oil services industry company. Sen. Barack Obama received money from the University of Chicago hospital in the form of a doubling of his wife's salary after he was elected to the Senate and then attempted to circumvent the normal National Institutes of Health grant process by earmarking brain trauma research money for the hospital. He also attempted to earmark $1 million for a hospital expansion project. Ironically, one of the critics of Obama's research earmark was Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.

Both Senators have accepted favors from those who wish their help in obtaining government benefits. That used to be called bribery. Why should one Senator who has taken a bribe have to resign and another allowed to become president?

Is it because one is older than the other or of a different party or has a different skin color?

We apparently have different standards here in Kansas than they do in Washington. One of the county commissioners who is retiring this year has an auto dealership. When the county purchased vehicles that his dealership bid on he abstained from participating in the decision. Local city council members abstain if a decision impacts their outside interests.

If Sen. Stevens were honest he wouldn't have accepted favors from a company that did business with government. If Sen. Obama were honest he would have stayed out of any decision involving his wife's employer instead of actively attempting to obtain funds for the employer.

Perhaps Obama could be excused on the grounds he is too young to know any better, but if so he is also too young to be president.

We should have the same standards for all Senators regardless of their party affiliations. Young Senators should be held to the same ethical standards as old Senators.

Not all racists are anti-black. Some racists believe that blacks are less capable of being honest and thus shouldn't be held to the same ethical standards. I believe that blacks are just as capable of being honest as whites and should be expected to adhere to the same ethical standards. I don't recall ever working with a black person whom I thought was dishonest, but there were a couple of white law enforcement officers who became crooks.