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Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies.^[1] It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States.^[2] The movement was prominent in the late 1960s and early 1970s, emphasizing racial pride and the creation of black political and cultural institutions to nurture and promote black collective interests^[3] and advance black values. "Black Power" expresses a range of political goals, from defense against racial oppression, to the establishment of social institutions and a self-sufficient economy. The earliest known usage of the term is found in a 1954 book by Richard Wright titled Black Power.^[4] Although he did not "coin" the phrase, New York politician Adam Clayton Powell Jr. used the term on May 29, 1966 during a baccalaureate address at Howard University: "To demand these God-given rights is to seek black power."^[5]

Origin as a political slogan[link]

The first popular use of the term "Black Power" as a social and political slogan was by Stokely Carmichael (later known as Kwame Ture) and Willie Ricks (later known as Mukasa Dada), both organizers and spokespersons for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). On June 16, 1966, after the shooting of James Meredith during the March Against Fear, Stokely Carmichael said:

"This is the twenty-seventh time I have been arrested and I ain't going to jail no more! The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin' us is to take over. What we gonna start sayin' now is Black Power!"

Stokely Carmichael saw the concept of "Black Power" as a means of solidarity between individuals within the movement. With his conception and articulation of the word, he felt this movement was not just a movement for racial desegregation, but rather a movement to help combat America's crippling racism. He was quoted in saying: "For the last time, 'Black Power' means black people coming together to form a political force and either electing representatives or forcing their representatives to speak their needs."^[6]

A range of ideology[link]

Some Black Power adherents believe in Black autonomy, with a variety of tendencies such as black nationalism, and black separatism. Such positions were for the most part in direct conflict with those of leaders of the mainstream Civil Rights Movement, and thus the two movements have often been viewed as inherently antagonistic. However, certain groups and individuals participated in both civil rights and black power activism.

Not all Black Power advocates were in favor of black nationalism and black separatism. While Stokely Carmichael and SNCC were in favor of black nationalism, organizations such as the Black Panther Party for Self Defense were not. Though they considered themselves to be at war with a power structure that was indeed all white, they were not at war with all Whites, merely the individuals in the existing power structure, who happened to be all white.

Bobby Seale, Chairman and Co-Founder of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, was outspoken about this. His stand was that the oppression of black people was more of a result of economic exploitation than anything innately racist. In his book Seize the Time, he states that "In our view it is a class struggle between the massive proletarian working class and the small, minority ruling class. Working-class people of all colors must unite against the exploitative, oppressive ruling class. So let me emphasize again -- we believe our fight is a class struggle and not a race struggle."^[7]

Bayard Rustin, an elder statesman of the Civil Rights Movement, was a harsh critic of Black Power in its earliest days. Writing in 1966, shortly after the March Against Fear, Rustin said that Black Power “not only lacks any real value for the civil rights movement, but [...] its propagation is positively harmful. It diverts the movement from a meaningful debate over strategy and tactics, it isolates the Negro community, and it encourages the growth of anti-Negro forces.” He particularly criticized the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and SNCC for their turn toward Black Power, arguing that these two organizations once “awakened the country, but now they emerge isolated and demoralized, shouting a slogan that may afford a momentary satisfaction but that is calculated to destroy them and their movement.”^[8]

Internationalist offshoots of black power include African Internationalism, pan-Africanism, black nationalism, and black supremacy.

Background[link]

The movement for Black Power in the U.S. came during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Many members of SNCC, among them Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture), were becoming critical of the nonviolent approach to confronting racism and inequality—articulated and practiced by Martin Luther King, Jr., the NAACP and other moderates—and rejected desegregation as a primary objective.

SNCC's membership was generally younger than that of the other "Big Five"^[9] civil rights organizations and became increasingly more militant and outspoken over time. From SNCC's point of view, racist people had no qualms about the use of violence against black people in the U.S. who would not "stay in their place," and "accommodationist" civil rights strategies had failed to secure sufficient concessions for black people.^{[citation needed]} As a result, as the Civil Rights Movement progressed, increasingly radical, more militant voices came to the fore to aggressively challenge white hegemony. Increasing numbers of black youth, particularly, rejected their elders' moderate path of cooperation, racial integration and assimilation. They rejected the notion of appealing to the public's conscience and religious creeds and took the tack articulated by another black activist more than a century before. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass wrote:

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. ...Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will.^[10]

Civil Rights leaders also believed in agitation, but most did not believe in physically violent retaliation.

During the March Against Fear, there was a division between those aligned with Martin Luther King, Jr. and those aligned with Carmichael, marked by their respective slogans, "Freedom Now" and "Black Power."^[11]

While King never endorsed the slogan, his rhetoric sometimes came close to it. In his 1967 book Where Do We Go From Here?, King wrote that "power is not the white man's birthright; it will not be legislated for us and delivered in neat government packages."^[12]

Impact[link]

Although the concept remained imprecise and contested and the people, who used the slogan ranged from businesspeople who used it to push black capitalism to revolutionaries who sought an end to capitalism, the idea of Black Power exerted a significant influence. It helped organize scores of community self-help groups and institutions that did not depend on Whites. It was used to force black studies programs at colleges, to mobilize black voters to elect black candidates, and to encourage greater racial pride and self-esteem.^{[citation needed]}

Impact on Black Politics[link]

Though the Black Power movement did not immediately remedy the political problems faced by African Americans in the 1960s and 1970s, the movement did contribute to the development of black politics both directly and indirectly. As a contemporary of and successor to the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power movement created, what sociologist Herbert H. Haines refers to as a “positive radical flank effect” on political affairs of the 1960s. Though the nature of the relationship between the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power movement is contested, Haines’ study of the relationship between black radicals and the mainstream civil rights movement indicates that Black Power generated a “crisis in American institutions which made the legislative agenda of ‘polite, realistic, and businesslike’ mainstream organizations” more appealing to politicians. In this way, it can be argued that the more strident and oppositional messages of the Black Power movement indirectly enhanced the bargaining position of more moderate activists.^[13] Black Power activists approached politics with vitality, variety, wit, and creativity that shaped the way future generations approached dealing with America’s societal problems (McCartney 188). These activists capitalized on the nation’s recent awareness of the political nature of oppression, a primary focus of the Civil Rights Movement, developing numerous political action caucuses and grass roots community associations to remedy the situation ^[13]

The National Black Political Convention, held March 10–12, 1972, was a significant milestone in black politics of the Black Power era. Held in Gary, Indiana, a majority black city, the convention included a diverse group of black activists, although it completely excluded whites. The convention was criticized for its racial exclusivity by Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, a group that supported integration. The delegates created a National Black Political Agenda with stated goals including the election of a proportionate number of black representatives to Congress, community control of schools, national health insurance, etc. Though the convention did not result in any direct policy, the convention advanced goals of the Black Power movement and left participants buoyed by a spirit of possibility and themes of unity and self-determination. A concluding note to the convention, addressing its supposed idealism, read: “At every critical moment of our struggle in America we have had to press relentlessly against the limits of the ‘realistic’ to create new realities for the life of our people. This is our challenge at Gary and beyond, for a new Black politics demands new vision, new hope and new definitions of the possible. Our time has come. These things are necessary. All things are possible.”^[14] Though such political activism may not have resulted in direct policy, they provided political models for later movements, advanced a pro-black political agenda, and brought sensitive issues to the forefront of American politics. In its confrontational and often oppositional nature, the Black Power movement, started a debate within the black community and America as a nation over issues of racial progress, citizenship, and democracy, namely “the nature of American society and the place of the African American in it.”.^[15] The continued intensity of debate over these same social and political issues is a tribute to the impact of the Black Power movement in arousing the political awareness and passions of citizens.^[16]

Impact on other movements[link]

Though the aims of the Black Power movement were racially specific, much of the movement’s impact has been its influence on the development and strategies of later political and social movements. By igniting and sustaining debate on the nature of American society, the Black Power movement created what other multiracial and minority groups interpreted to be a viable template for the overall restructuring of society.^[17] By opening up discussion on issues of democracy and equality, the Black Power movement paved the way for a diverse plurality of social justice movements, including black feminism, environmental movements, affirmative action, and gay and lesbian rights. Central to these movements were the issues of identity politics and structural inequality, features emerging from the Black Power movement ^[18] Because the Black Power movement emphasized and explored a black identity, movement activists were forced to confront issues of gender, class and as well. Many activists in the Black Power movement became active in related movements. This is seen in the case of the “second wave” of women’s right activism, a movement supported and orchestrated to a certain degree by women working from within the coalition ranks of the Black Power movement.^[19] The boundaries between social movements became increasingly unclear at the end of the 1960s and into the 1970s; where the Black Power movement ends and where these other social movements begin is often unclear. “It is pertinent to note that as the movement expanded the variables of gender, class, and only compounded issues of strategy and methodology in black protest thought.”^[20]

Impact on African American identity[link]

Due to the negative and militant reputation of such auxiliaries like that of the Black Panther Party, many people felt that this movement of "insurrection" would soon serve to cause discord, and disharmony through the entire U.S. Even Stokely Carmichael stated, "When you talk of Black Power, you talk of building a movement that will smash everything Western civilization has created."^[21] Though Black Power at the most basic level refers to a political movement, the psychological and cultural messages of the Black Power movement, though less tangible, have had perhaps a longer lasting impact on American society than concrete political changes. Indeed, “fixation on the ‘political’ hinders appreciation of the movement’s cultural manifestations and unnecessarily obscures black culture’s role in promoting the psychological well being of the Afro-American people.”.^[22] States William L. Van Deburg, author of A New Day in Babylon, “movement leaders never were as successful in winning power for the people as they were in convincing people that they had sufficient power within themselves to escape ‘the prison of self-deprecation’” ^[23] Primarily, the liberation and empowerment experienced by African Americans occurred in the psychological realm. The movement uplifted the black community as a whole by cultivating feelings of racial solidarity, often in opposition to the world of white Americans, a world that had physically and psychologically oppressed Blacks for generations. Through the movement, Blacks came to understand themselves and their culture by exploring and debating the question, “who are we?” in order to establish a unified and viable identity.^[24]

Throughout the Civil Rights Movement and black history a tension has existing between those wishing to minimize and maximize racial difference. W.E.B. Du Bois and Martin Luther King Jr. often attempted to deemphasize race in their quest for equality, while those advocating for separatism and colonization emphasized an extreme and irreconcilable difference between races. The Black Power movement largely achieved an equilibrium of “balanced and humane ethnocentrism.”^[24] The impact of the Black Power movement in generating valuable discussion about ethnic identity and black consciousness manifests itself in the relatively recent proliferation of academic fields such as American studies, Black Studies, and Africana studies in both national and international institutions.^[25] The respect and attention accorded to African Americans’ history and culture in both formal and informal settings today is largely a product of the movement for Black Power in the 1960s and 1970s.

Black is beautiful[link]

The cultivation of pride in the African American race was often summarized in the phrase "Black is Beautiful". The phrase is rooted in its historical context, yet the relationship to it has changed in contemporary times. “I don’t think it’s ‘Black is beautiful’ anymore. It’s ‘I am beautiful and I’m black.’ It’s not the symbolic thing, the afro, power sign… That phase is over and it succeeded. My children feel better about themselves and they know that they’re black,” stated a respondent in Bob Blauner’s longitudinal oral history of U.S. race relations in 1986.^[26] The outward manifestations of an appreciation and celebration of blackness abound: black dolls, natural hair, black Santas, models and celebrities that were once rare and symbolic have become commonplace.

The "Black is beautiful" cultural movement aimed to dispel the notion that black people's natural features such as skin color, facial features and hair are inherently ugly.^[27] John Sweat Rock was the first to coin the phrase "Black is Beautiful", in the slavery era. The movement asked that men and women stop straightening their hair and attempting to lighten or bleach their skin.^[28] The prevailing idea in American culture was that black features are less attractive or desirable than white features. The movement is largely responsible for the popularity of the Afro. Most importantly, it gave a generation of African Americans the courage to feel good about who they are and how they look.

Impact on arts and culture[link]

The Black Power movement produced artistic and cultural products that both embodied and generated pride in “blackness” and further defined an African American identity that remains contemporary. Black Power is often seen as a cultural revolution as much as a political revolution, with the goal of celebrating and emphasizing the distinctive group culture of African Americans to an American society that had previously been dominated by white artistic and cultural expressions. Black power utilized all available forms of folk, literary, and dramatic expression based in a common ancestral past to promote a message of self-actualization and cultural self-definition.^[29] The emphasis on a distinctive black culture during the Black Power movement publicized and legitimized a culture gap between Blacks and Whites that had previously been ignored and denigrated. More generally, in recognizing the legitimacy of another culture and challenging the idea of white cultural superiority, the Black Power movement paved the way for the celebration of multiculturalism in America today.

The cultural concept of “soul” was fundamental to the image of African American culture embodied by the Black Power movement. Soul, a type of “in-group cultural cachet,” was closely tied to black America’s need for individual and group self-identification.^[30] A central expression of the “soulfulness” of the Black Power generation was a cultivation of aloofness and detachment, the creation of an “aura or emotional invulnerability,” a persona that challenged their position of relative powerlessness in greater society. The nonverbal expressions of this attitude, including everything from posture to handshakes, were developed as a counterpoint to the rigid, “up-tight” mannerisms of white people. Though the iconic symbol of black power, the arms raised with biceps flexed and clenched fists, is temporally specific, variants of the multitude of handshakes, or “giving and getting skin,” in the 1960s and 1970s as a mark of communal solidarity continue to exist as a part of black culture.^[31] Clothing style also became an expression of Black Power in the 1960s and 1970s. Though many of the popular trends of the movement remained confined to the decade, the movement redefined standards of beauty that were historically influenced by Whites and instead celebrated a natural “blackness.” As Stokely Carmichael said in 1966, “We have to stop being ashamed of being black. A broad nose, thick lip and nappy hair is us and we are going to call that beautiful whether they like it or not.”^[32] “Natural” hair styles, such as the Afro, became a socially acceptable tribute to group unity and a highly visible celebration of black heritage. Though the same social messages may no longer consciously influence individual hair or clothing styles in today’s society, the Black Power movement was influential in diversifying standards of beauty and aesthetic choices. The Black Power movement raised the idea of a black aesthetic that revealed the worth and beauty of all black people.^[33]

In developing a powerful identity from the most elemental aspects of African American folk life, the Black Power movement generated attention to the concept of “soul food,” a fresh, authentic, and natural style of cooking that originated in Africa. The flavor and solid nourishment of the food was credited with sustaining African Americans through centuries of oppression in America and became an important aid in nurturing contemporary racial pride.^[34] Black Power advocates used the concept of “soul food” to further distinguish between white and black culture; though the basic elements of soul food were not specific to African American food, Blacks believed in the distinctive quality, if not superiority, of foods prepared by Blacks. No longer racially specific, traditional “soul foods” such as yams, collard greens, and deep-fried chicken continue to hold a place in contemporary culinary life.

Black Arts Movement[link]

The Black Arts Movement or BAM, founded in Harlem by writer and activist Amiri Baraka (born Everett LeRoy Jones) can be seen as the artistic branch of the Black Power movement.^[35] This movement inspired black people to establish ownership of publishing houses, magazines, journals and art institutions. Other well-known writers who were involved with this movement included Nikki Giovanni; Don L. Lee, later known as Haki Madhubuti; Sonia Sanchez; Maya Angelou; Dudley Randall; Sterling Plumpp; Larry Neal; Ted Joans; Ahmos Zu-Bolton; and Etheridge Knight. Several black-owned publishing houses and publications sprang from the BAM, including Madhubuti's Third World Press, Broadside Press, Zu-Bolton's Energy Black South Press, and the periodicals Callaloo and Yardbird Reader. Although not strictly involved with the Movement, other notable African American writers such as novelists Ishmael Reed and Toni Morrison and poet Gwendolyn Brooks can be considered to share some of its artistic and thematic concerns.

BAM sought “to link, in a highly conscious manner, art and politics in order to assist in the liberation of black people”, and produced an increase in the quantity and visibility of African American artistic production.^[36] Though many elements of the Black Arts movement are separate from the Black Power movement, many goals, themes, and activists overlapped. Literature, drama, and music of Blacks “served as an oppositional and defensive mechanism through which creative artists could confirm their identity while articulating their own unique impressions of social reality.”^[37] In addition to acting as highly visible and unifying representations of “blackness,” the artistic products of the Black Power movement also utilized themes of black empowerment and liberation.^[38] For instance, black recording artists not only transmitted messages of racial unity through their music, they also became significant role models for a younger generation of African Americans.^[39] Updated protest songs not only bemoaned oppression and societal wrongs, but utilized adversity as a reference point and tool to lead others to activism. Some Black Power era artists conducted brief mini-courses in the techniques of empowerment. In the tradition of cultural nationalists, these artists taught that in order to alter social conditions, Blacks first had to change the way they viewed themselves; they had to break free of white norms and strive to be more natural, a common theme of African American art and music.^[40] Musicians such as the Temptations sang lyrics such as “I have one single desire, just like you / So move over, son, ‘cause I’m comin’ through” in their song “Message From a Black Man,” they expressed the revolutionary sentiments of the Black Power movement.^[41]

Ishmael Reed, who is considered neither a movement apologist nor advocate said "I wasn't invited to participate because I was considered an integrationist" but he went on to explain the positive aspects of the Black Arts Movement and the Black Power movement:

I think what Black Arts did was inspire a whole lot of Black people to write. Moreover, there would be no multiculturalism movement without Black Arts. Latinos, Asian Americans, and others all say they began writing as a result of the example of the 1960s. Blacks gave the example that you don't have to assimilate. You could do your own thing, get into your own background, your own history, your own tradition and your own culture. I think the challenge is for cultural sovereignty and Black Arts struck a blow for that.^[42]

By breaking into a field typically reserved for white Americans, artists of the Black Power era expanded opportunities for current African Americans. “Today’s writers and performers,” writes William L. Van Deburg, “recognize that they owe a great deal to Black Power’s explosion of cultural orthodoxy”.^[43]

See also[link]

African American portal

• Wadsworth Jarrell, one of the leading artists of the Black Arts Movement
• 1968 Olympics Black Power salute
• African independence movements
• African-American – Jewish relations#Black power movement
• Black anarchism
• Black feminism
• Black Power Revolution
• Black Consciousness Movement
• Eldridge Cleaver
• Deacons for Defense and Justice
• Marcus Garvey
• Malcolm X
• National-Anarchism
• Négritude
• New Black Panthers
• Huey P. Newton
• Protests of 1968
• Red Power movement
• Republic of New Africa
• SNCC

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

• Carmichael, Stokely/ Hamilton, Charles V.: Black Power. The Politics of Liberation in America, Vintage, New York, 1967.
• Breitman, George. In Defense of Black Power. International Socialist Review January-February 1967, from Tamiment Library microfilm archives. Transcribed & marked up by Andrew Pollack for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line. Retrieved May 2, 2005.
• Salas, Mario Marcel. Masters Thesis: Patterns of Persistence: Paternal Colonialist Structures and the Radical Opposition in the African American Community in San Antonio, 1937–2001, University of Texas at San Antonio.
• Brown, Scot, Fighting for US: Maulana Karenga, the US Organization, and Black Cultural Nationalism, NYU Press, New York, 2003.
• Ogbar, Jeffrey O. G. Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2004.

External links[link]

• Website of Dr. Christian Davenport, Director of the Radical Information Project and Professor of Peace Studies, Political Science and Sociology - University of Notre Dame
• Website of Dr. Peniel E. Joseph, Professor of African-American Studies - Scholar of African American history and frequent commentator on civil rights, race and democracy issues
• The Immortal Birth Book, Gods & Earths
• Stokely-Carmichael.com - Focus on Carmichael's life and rhetoric
• The official website of the New Black Panther Party.
• Black Youth Empowerment
• Hubert Harrison
• Ben Fletcher
• A History of Harlem CORE
• The Black Power Mixtape – New Documentary Featuring Angela Davis, Huey P. Newton, & Stokely Carmichael - video report by Democracy Now!
• Official Black Power Website

Stokely Carmichael (aka Kwame Ture; June 29, 1941 – November 15, 1998) was a Trinidadian-American black activist active in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. He rose to prominence first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced "snick") and later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party. Initially an integrationist, Carmichael later became affiliated with black nationalist and Pan-Africanist movements.^[1] He popularized the term "Black Power".^[2]

Early life and education[link]

Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Stokely Carmichael moved to Harlem, New York City in 1952 at age eleven to rejoin his parents,^[2] who had left him with his grandmother and two aunts to immigrate when he was two. He attended the elite^[3] Tranquility School in Trinidad until his parents were able to send for him.^[4]

His mother, Mabel R. Carmichael,^[3] was a stewardess for a steamship line, and his father, Adolphus, was a carpenter who also worked as a taxi driver.^[2] The reunited Carmichael family eventually left Harlem to live in Morris Park in the East Bronx, at that time an aging Jewish and Italian neighborhood. According to a 1967 interview he gave to LIFE Magazine, he was the only black member of the Morris Park Dukes, a youth gang involved in alcohol and petty theft.^[2]

Carmichael as a senior in high school, 1960.

He attended the Bronx High School of Science. In 1960, Carmichael went on to attend Howard University, a historically-black university in Washington, D.C.. His professors included Sterling Brown,^[5][6] Nathan Hare^[7] and Toni Morrison.^[8] Carmichael and a white student and civil-rights activist, Tom Kahn, helped to fund a five-day run of the Three Penny Opera, by Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill: "Tom Kahn—very shrewdly—had captured the position of Treasurer of the Liberal Arts Student Council and the infinitely charismatic and popular Carmichael as floor whip was good at lining up the votes. Before they knew what hit them the Student Council had become a patron of the arts, having voted to buy out the remaining performances. It was a classic win/win. Members of the Council got patronage packets of tickets for distribution to friends and constituents".^[5] His apartment on Euclid Street was a gathering place for his activist classmates.^[3] He graduated with a degree in philosophy in 1964.^[2] He was offered a full graduate scholarship to Harvard University, but turned it down.^[9]

He joined the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG), the Howard campus affiliate of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).^[1] Tom Kahn introduced Carmichael and the other SNCC activists to Bayard Rustin, who became an influential adviser to SNCC.^[10] Carmichael became inspired by the sit-ins to become more active in the Civil Rights Movement. In his first year at the university, he participated in the Freedom Rides of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and was frequently arrested, spending time in jail. In 1961, he served 49 days at the infamous Parchman Farm in Sunflower County, Mississippi.^[2][11] He was arrested many times for his activism. He lost count of his many arrests, sometimes giving the estimate of at least 29 or 32, and telling the Washington Post in 1998 he believed that the total number was fewer than 36.^[3]

Freedom Rides[link]

In his first year at the Howard University, the nineteen-year-old Carmichael participated in the Freedom Rides of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Along with eight other riders, on June 4, 1961 Carmichael made the trip by train from New Orleans, LA to Jackson, MS.^[12] Before getting on the train in New Orleans, they encountered white protestors blocking the way. Carmichael says that “They were shouting. Throwing cans and lit cigarettes at us. Spitting on us.”.^[13] Eventually, they were able to board the train.

When the group arrived in Jackson, Carmichael and the eight other riders entered a “white” cafeteria. They were charged with disturbing the peace, arrested and taken to jail. Eventually, Carmichael was transferred to Parchman State Prison Farm where he gained notoriety for being a witty and hard nosed leader among the prisoners.^[14]

At nineteen years old, Carmichael became the youngest detainee in the summer of 1961.^[15] He spent 53 days at Parchman Farm in “a six-by-nine cell. Twice a week to shower. No books, nothing to do. They would isolate us. Maximum security.”.^[15] Carmichael said about the Parchman Farm sheriff that “The sheriff acted like he was scared of black folks and he came up with some beautiful things. One night he opened up all the windows, put on ten big fans and an air conditioner and dropped the temperature to 38 degrees. All we had on was T-shirts and shorts.”.^[15] While being hurt one time, Carmichael began singing to the guards, “I’m gonna tell God how you treat me” to which the rest of the prisoners joined in.^[16]

Carmichael kept the group's morale up while in prison, often telling jokes with Steve Green and the other Freedom Riders, and making light of their situation. While he joked around quite a bit, Carmichael knew this was serious. “What with the range of ideology, religious belief, political commitment and background, age, and experience, something interesting was always going on. Because no matter our differences, this group had one thing in common, moral stubbornness. Whatever we believed, we really believed and were not at all shy about advancing. We were where we were only because of our willingness to affirm our beliefs even at the risk of physical injury. So it was never dull on death row.”.^[13]

SNCC[link]

In 1965, working as a SNCC activist in Lowndes County, Alabama, Carmichael helped to increase the number of registered black voters from 70 to 2,600 — 300 more than the number of registered white voters.^[2] Black residents and voters organized and widely supported the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, a party that had the black panther as its mascot, over the white dominated local Democratic Party, whose mascot was a white rooster. Although black residents and voters outnumber whites in Lowndes, they lost the county wide election of 1965.^{[citation needed]}

Carmichael became chairman of SNCC later in 1966, taking over from John Lewis. A few weeks after Carmichael took office, James Meredith was attacked with a shotgun during his solitary "March Against Fear". Carmichael joined Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Floyd McKissick, Cleveland Sellers and others to continue Meredith's march. He was arrested once again during the march and, upon his release, he gave his first "Black Power" speech, using the phrase to urge black pride and socio-economic independence:

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. Everywhere that Black Power spread, if accepted, credit was given to Carmichael. If the concept was condemned, he was again responsible and given the blame.^[17] According to Carmichael: "Black Power meant black people coming together to form a political force and either electing representatives or forcing their representatives to speak their needs [rather than relying on established parties]".^[18] Heavily influenced by the work of Frantz Fanon and his landmark book Wretched of the Earth, along with others such as Malcolm X, under Carmichael's leadership SNCC gradually became more radical and focused on Black Power as its core goal and ideology. This became most evident during the controversial Atlanta Project in 1966. SNCC, under the local leadership of Bill Ware, engaged in a voter drive to promote the candidacy of Julian Bond for the Georgia State Legislature in an Atlanta district. However, unlike previous SNCC activities — like the 1961 Freedom Rides or the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer — Ware excluded Northern white SNCC members from the drive. Initially, Carmichael opposed this move and voted it down, but he eventually changed his mind.^[19] When, at the urging of the Atlanta Project, the issue of whites in SNCC came up for a vote, Carmichael ultimately sided with those calling for the expulsion of whites, reportedly to encourage whites to begin organizing poor white southern communities while SNCC would continue to focus on promoting African American self reliance through Black Power.^[20]

Carmichael saw nonviolence as a tactic as opposed to a principle, which separated him from moderate civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr.. Carmichael became critical of civil rights leaders who simply called for the integration of African Americans into existing institutions of the middle class mainstream.

IAccording 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."

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In 1967, Carmichael stepped down as chairman of SNCC and was replaced by H. Rap Brown. The SNCC, which was a collective and, in keeping with the spirit of the times, worked by group consensus rather than hierarchically, was displeased with Carmichael's celebrity status. SNCC leaders had begun to refer to him as "Stokely Starmichael" and criticize his habit of making policy announcements independently, before achieving internal agreement, and gave him a formal letter of expulsion in 1967.^[3] There is some speculation around Carmichael’s reasoning for stepping down from the chairman position of SNCC. According to his personal narratives, Carmichael witnessed African American demonstrators being beaten and shocked with cattle prods by the police. Witnessing the helplessness of people so fully committed to the non-violent approach gave Carmichael a new perspective, one which condoned the use of violent techniques against the brutality of the racist police force. Carmichael’s new tactics sought to reciprocate the fear instilled in African Americans by the police force,^[22] which led to the creation of the militant social group known as “The Black Panthers.”

After his time with the SNCC, Carmichael attempted to clarify his politics by writing the book Black Power (1967) with Charles V. Hamilton and became a strong critic of the Vietnam War. During this period he traveled and lectured extensively throughout the world; visiting Guinea, North Vietnam, China, and Cuba. After his expulsion from the SNCC, Carmichael became more clearly identified with the Black Panther Party as its "Honorary Prime Minister."^[3] During this period he became more of a speaker than an organizer, traveling throughout the country and internationally advocating for his vision of Black Power.^[23]

Carmichael also lamented the 1967 execution of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, professing:

Vietnam[link]

Carmichael joined Martin Luther King Jr. in New York on April 15, 1967 to share his views with protesters on race in terms of the war in Vietnam.

^[25]

Self-imposed exile[link]

However, Carmichael soon began to distance himself from the Panthers. The Panthers and Carmichael disagreed on whether white activists should be allowed to help the Panthers. The Panthers believed that white activists could help the movement, while Carmichael thought as Malcolm X, saying that the white activists needed to organize their own communities first. In 1969, he and his then-wife, the South African singer Miriam Makeba, moved to Guinea-Conakry where he became an aide to Guinean prime minister Ahmed Sékou Touré and the student of exiled Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah.^[26] Makeba was appointed Guinea's official delegate to the United Nations.^[27] Three months after his arrival in Guinea, in July 1969, he published a formal rejection of the Black Panthers, condemning the Panthers for not being separatist enough and their "dogmatic party line favoring alliances with white radicals".^[2]

It was at this stage in his life that Carmichael changed his name to Kwame Ture to honor the African leaders Nkrumah and Touré who had become his patrons. At the end of his life, friends still referred to him interchangeably by both names, "and he doesn't seem to mind."^[3]

Carmichael remained in Guinea after separation from the Black Panther Party. He continued to travel, write, and speak out in support of international leftist movements and in 1971 collected his work in a second book Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism. This book expounds an explicitly socialist, Pan-African vision, which he seemingly retained for the rest of his life. From the late 1970s until the day he died, he answered his phone by announcing "Ready for the revolution!"^[2]

While in Guinea, he was arrested one more time. Two years after Touré's death in 1984, the military regime which took his place arrested Carmichael and jailed him for three days on suspicion of attempting to overthrow the government. Despite common knowledge that President Touré engaged in torture of his political opponents, Carmichael had never criticized his namesake.^[2]

Carmichael and Makeba separated in 1973. After they divorced, he entered a second marriage with Marlyatou Barry, a Guinean doctor whom he also divorced. By 1998, his second wife and their son, Bokar, born in 1982, were living in Arlington County, Virginia. Relying on a statement from the All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party, his 1998 obituary in The New York Times referenced two sons, three sisters, and his mother as survivors, but without further details.^[2]

Death and legacy[link]

After two years of treatment at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, he died of prostate cancer at the age of 57 in Conakry, Guinea. He claimed that his cancer "was given to me by forces of American imperialism and others who conspired with them."^[2] He claimed that the FBI had introduced the cancer to his body as an attempt at assassination.^[28] After his diagnosis in 1996, he was treated in Cuba for his illness while receiving money from the Nation of Islam.^[29] Benefit concerts were held in Denver; New York; Atlanta;^[4] and Washington, D.C.,^[3] to help defray his medical expenses; and the government of Trinidad and Tobago, where he was born, awarded him a grant of $1,000 a month for the same purpose.^[4]

In 2007, the publication of previously secret Central Intelligence Agency documents revealed that Carmichael had been tracked by the CIA as part of their surveillance of black activists abroad, which began in 1968 and continued for years.^[30]

In a final interview given to the Washington Post, he spoke with contempt for the economic and electoral progress made during the past thirty years. He acknowledged that blacks had won election to major mayorships, but stated that the power of mayoralty had been diminished and that such progress was essentially meaningless.^[31]

Stokely Carmichael, along with Charles Hamilton,^[32] are credited with coining the phrase "institutional racism", which is defined as a form of racism that occurs through institutions such as public bodies and corporations, including universities. In the late 1960s Carmichael defined "institutional racism" as "the collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their color, culture or ethnic origin".^[33]

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson gave a speech celebrating Carmichael'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".^[34]

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Stokely Carmichael on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.^[35]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Carmichael, Stokely, et al. Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture). Scribner 2005, 848 pages. ISBN 0-684-85004-4.
• Carmichael, Stokely, et al. Black Power: The Politics of Liberation. Vintage; Reissue edition 1992, 256 pages. ISBN 0-679-74313-8.
• Carmichael, Stokely, et al. Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism. Random House 1971, 292 pages. ISBN 0-394-46879-1.
• Joseph, Peniel E., Waiting 'Til The Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America. 399 pages. ISBN 0-8050-8335-9

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Stokely Carmichael

• Stokely Carmichael - Life, Politics and Rhetoric
• Stokely Carmichael
• Stokely 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 Records - Stokely Carmichael records at FBI's The Vault Project.
• A final interview with Kwame Ture in the Washington Post published April 8, 1998

Research resources[link]

• Stokely Carmichael-Lorna D. Smith Collection, 1964-1972 (5 linear ft.) is housed in the Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Stanford University Libraries

Videos[link]

• Kwame Ture on Zionism
• Feb 17 1968 on PBS.org
• consciousness and unconsciousness
• With H. Rap Brown, Oakland, 1968 (longer version of PBS clip)
• C-SPAN interview, "Life and Career of Kwame Ture", April 15, 1998
• Memorial service for Kwame Ture, January 9, 1999

v t e Pan-Africanism Proponents Politicians Nnamdi Azikiwe Amílcar Cabral Muammar Gaddafi Marcus Garvey David Comissiong Kenneth Kaunda Jomo Kenyatta Patrice Lumumba Thabo Mbeki Abdias do Nascimento Gamal Abdel Nasser Kwame Nkrumah Julius Nyerere John Nyathi Pokela Thomas Sankara Haile Selassie Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Ahmed Sékou Touré I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson Others Marimba Ani Molefi Kete Asante Steve Biko Edward Wilmot Blyden John Henrik Clarke Cheikh Anta Diop W. E. B. Du Bois Frantz Fanon John G. Jackson Leonard Jeffries Yosef Ben-Jochannan Maulana Karenga Fela Kuti Bob Marley Malcolm X Zephania Mothopeng George Padmore Motsoko Pheko Runoko Rashidi Paul Robeson Walter Rodney Burning Spear Henry Sylvester-Williams Stokely Carmichael Omali Yeshitela Concepts United States of Africa Afrocentrism Kwanzaa Pan-African colours Pan-African flag Négritude African nationalism African socialism African Century Africanization Kawaida Ujamaa Harambee Ubuntu Zikism Black nationalism Organizations African Union Organization of African Unity Uhuru Movement UNIA-ACL African Unification Front International African Service Bureau