[4][5][6] A one-time clothing designer at Chicago's J. Reinhardt firm, Adams' passion for the performing arts led to her graduate degree in the field, nearly 25 years after she completed college,[5] as well as a career as an actress that spanned radio, film and television and, above all, theatre.

Her stage performances included work at the National Theater in The Crucible and Ring Around the Moon,[4] appearances in a New York Shakespeare Festival production and multiple Broadway productions including The Emperor Jones with Paul Robeson, Arthur Miller's Broadway version of The Crucible, and such plays as The Guide, Debut, the Cat Screams, Panic and Between Two Worlds.

[9] That experience was complemented by her nearly decade-long involvement with the Putnam County Playhouse, during which Adams directed nearly three dozen plays, alongside Lee Marvin, Isabel Sanford and Mike Nichols.

[15] As documented in the Suffragists in Washington, D.C.: The 1913 Parade and the Fight for the Vote, Adams and her 21 co-founders attended the suffragette march, paving the way for future Black political activism despite their confinement to a segregated section during the event.

[18] [19]Mary Church Terrell, best known as a advocate for women’s rights was made an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta in 1919 and marched as a woman in the college section.

"[4] Adams is also known for "promoting equal opportunity for blacks and other minorities," in Actors Equity, and her work with the American Theatre Wing of the Stage Door Canteen during World War II.