Stokely Carmichael
Stokely Carmichael (
June 29,
1941 –
November 15,
1998), also known as
Kwame Ture, was a
Trinidadian-
American black activist and leader of the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the
Black Panther Party. He later became a black
separatist and a
Pan-Africanist.
Born in
Port of Spain,
Trinidad and Tobago, Carmichael moved with his family to
New York when he was eleven. He went to
Howard University and joined SNCC. In his first year at the university he participated in the
Freedom Rides of the
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and was arrested, spending time in jail. He would go on to be arrested many times, losing count at 32.
After having helped organize voting rights drives in
Mississippi in
1964, in
Selma in
1965, and in
Lowndes County, Alabama in
1966, he became chair of SNCC in 1966, taking over from
John Lewis. A few weeks after Carmichael took over SNCC,
James Meredith was shot by a sniper during his solitary "
March Against Fear". Carmichael joined
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Floyd McKissick, and others to continue Meredith's march. He was arrested during the march; on his release he gave his "
Black Power" speech, using that phrase to urge
black pride and independence:
"It is a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations."
While Black Power was not a new concept, Carmichael's speech brought it into the spotlight and it became a rallying cry for young
African Americans across the country. SNCC embraced this new vision and gradually became more radical under his leadership.
Carmichael saw
nonviolence as a tactic as opposed to a principle, which separated him from moderate civil rights leaders like
Martin Luther King, Jr.. He was critical of civil rights leaders who simply called for
integration of African Americans into the existing institutions of white
middle class culture. Carmichael saw this as unrealistic and an insult to the culture and identity of African Americans.
According to
Bearing the Cross (1986),
David J. Garrow's
Pulitzer Prize winning book about the
Civil Rights movement, a few days after Carmichael used the "Black Power" slogan at the "Meredith March Against Fear", he reportedly told King, "Martin, I deliberately decided to raise this issue on the march in order to give it a national forum and force you to take a stand for Black Power." King responded, "I have been used before. One more time won't hurt."
In 1967, Carmichael stepped down from leadership of SNCC. He and
Charles V. Hamilton wrote the book,
Black Power (1967). He joined the Black Panther Party and became a strong critic of the
Vietnam War. He traveled to
North Vietnam,
China, and
Cuba. Carmichael was made an honorary prime minister of the Black Panthers in 1968.
In 1969, Carmichael and his then-wife, the
South African singer,
Miriam Makeba, moved to
Guinea, in
West Africa, and he became an aide to Guinean
prime minister,
Ahmed Sékou Touré. There, in 1971, he wrote the book,
Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism. This book expounds an explicitly
socialist,
Pan-African vision, which he retained for the rest of his life. In 1978, he changed his name to Kwame Ture to honor African leaders
Kwame Nkrumah and
Ahmed Sékou Touré.
He died of
prostate cancer at the age of 57 in
Conakry,
Guinea.
Stokely Carmichael is credited for coining the phrase
institutional racism. Institutional racism (or
structural racism or
systemic racism) is a form of racism that occurs in institutions such as public bodies and corporations, including universities. In the late 1960s he defined the term as "the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin".
[Richard W. Race, Analysing ethnic education policy-making in England and Wales (PDF), Sheffield Online Papers in Social Research, University of Sheffield, p.12. Accessed 20 June 2006.]Civil rights leader
Jesse Jackson gave a speech celebrating Ture's life, stating: "He was one of our generation who was determined to give his life to transforming America and
Africa. He was committed to ending racial apartheid in our country. He helped to bring those walls down".
[Black Panther Leader Dies, BBC, November 16, 1998. Accessed 20 June 2006.]*
Feb 17 1968*
consciousness and unconciousness*
Stokely Carmichael*
Stokley Carmichael Page. Stokely Carmichael spoke to an enthusiastic crowd at Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington on April 19, 1967. Audio and slideshow. Retrieved May 3, 2005.
*
Stokely Carmichael FBI FOIA*
A final interview with Kwame Turme in the Washington Post published April 8, 1998
