Historical Spotlight: Stokely Carmichael
Sometimes change is as quiet as a mouse, but sometimes change is as loud as a firework. During the Civil Rights Movement, there were many different organizations, tactics, and leaders who all ultimately pushed for better conditions for Black Americans. Each activist had their own methods of demanding justice which combined to create effective policy change and legacies. Join me as we shine a Historical Spotlight on one of the most influential civil rights leaders of the time, Stokely Carmichael.
Stokely was born on June 29, 1941 in Trinidad and Tobago. He was raised by his grandma and two aunts after his parents, Mabel and Adolphus Carmichael, immigrated to the United States when he was only two years old. He spent the first decade of his life in the Caribbean before joining his parents in Harlem, New York when he was 11 years old.
His mom worked as a stewardess for a steam boat company and his dad worked as a carpenter and a taxi driver to support Stokely and his three sisters. The family eventually left Harlem and moved to Van Nest in the East Bronx, a neighborhood of mostly Jewish and Italian immigrants and descendants.
Stokely attended the Bronx High School of Science in 1956 after scoring highly on the entrance exam and graduated in 1959. For college, he enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D.C. and graduated in 1964 with a degree in philosophy. While at Howard, he was taught by many noteworthy professors like Toni Morrison, Nathan Hare, and Sterling Brown, and was even offered a full graduate scholarship to attend Harvard, but ultimately turned it down.
Stokely joined the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG), the Howard campus affiliate of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), after becoming inspired by the sit-in movement happening throughout the southern states. He was introduced to SNCC activists like Bayard Rustin and his apartment was often a gathering place for his classmates.
During his freshman year at Howard, Stokely participated in the Freedom Rides organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to desegregate the interstate buses and bus station restaurants along U.S. Route 40 between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. In a similar incident on June 4, 1961, he, along with eight other activists, rode the train from New Orleans, Louisiana to Jackson, Mississippi to integrate the interstate train. After entering a cafeteria for white patrons, the group was charged with disturbing the peace, arrested, and taken to the Parchman Penitentiary in Sunflower County, Mississippi.
While in Parchman, he quickly gained notoriety and rose as a leader amongst the prisoners. He and the other Freedom Riders served almost two months in jail and faced horrid conditions. They were only allowed to shower twice a week, were denied books or any other personal items, and were oftentimes sent to maximum security for isolation. Despite this treatment, Stokely understood the importance of keeping the issue alive and kept the group’s morale up by encouraging them throughout the situation.
After being released from jail, he finished college without another major incident. Stokely became a full-time field organizer for SNCC in Mississippi in 1964 and worked on many voting rights projects with grassroots activists like Bob Moses, Gloria Richardson, Fannie Lou Hamer, and many others who continued to inspire him. He provided support for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in the 1964 Democratic Convention, but was left disillusioned in the American political system after due process was followed and change was still denied. He described it as a “totalitarian liberal opinion” in which “what the liberal really wants is to bring about change which will not in any way endanger his position.”
He decided to take a step away from the Democratic Party in 1965 and instead focus on SNCC projects in Alabama. He was recruited by James Forman to hold protests at the Alabama State Capitol, but grew frustrated with the division between SNCC and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The nonviolent confrontations with police, which he no longer found empowering, also took a toll on him, forcing him to leave the city after collapsing from stress.
He returned to protesting after taking a week off to help establish the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO), which increased the number of registered Black voters in Lowndes County, Alabama from 70 to 2,500. Residents were initially wary of getting involved with the activists because of the violent voter suppression in the area, but eventually banded together after witnessing Stokely stand up to two officers who tried arresting him for passing out voter registration material.
In 1966, the SNCC elected Stokely as chairman over the presiding John Lewis. He gave his first “Black Power” speech immediately after he was released from jail for continuing James Meredith’s March Against Fear. He encouraged Black pride and advocated for socioeconomic independence. His speech quickly spread to young Black Americans across the country who were frustrated with the slow progress in civil rights.
He was influenced by the powerful teachings of Malcolm X and used his stance in SNCC to transform the organization so it focused on Black Power as the ultimate goal. When the issue of having white members in SNCC came up for a vote, Stokely sided with excluding them under the premise that they should focus on organizing poor white southern communities while SNCC should focus on promoting self-reliance through Black Power.
Stokely set himself apart from other civil rights activists at the time because, while he considered nonviolence a tactic, he didn’t see it as a fundamental principle. He saw the need to put foot to pavement when necessary to force change and criticized integration because it ultimately maintained white supremacy. Instead of solving the root problem, Stokely felt that integration only put a band-aid on the issue. The protests weren’t just to have the right to sit wherever you wanted on a train, but to ultimately dismantle the unjust system of white supremacy.
In May 1967, Stokely stepped down as chairman of SNCC and was replaced by H. Rap Brown. The group, which operated by consensus, started criticizing Stokely’s leadership and policy announcements before decisions were finalized amongst the group. Shortly thereafter, he accepted the position of Honorary Prime Minister in the Black Panther Party while remaining on the SNCC staff, and eventually tried to find common ground for a merger between the two organizations.
During this time, he was also targeted by COINTELPRO and was spied on, lied on, and deemed an enemy of the US. J. Edgar Hoover feared the rise of a Black Nationalist “messiah” and thought that Stokely could easily fit the mold because of his public support and radical teachings. In July 1968, Hoover increased his efforts to divide the black power movement by undermining the SNCC and Black Panther merger and suggesting that Stokely was an undercover CIA agent. Unfortunately, the smear campaign was successful and Stokely was expelled from SNCC and denounced from the Black Panthers.
In his book Black Power: The Politics of Liberation published in 1967, he criticized the leadership of the SCLC and NAACP for accepting symbols instead of change during the Civil Rights Movement. He also taught that assimilating into the white “middle class” was a trap to get Black Americans to turn their backs on fighting for others who were still suffering. He advocated that Black Americans had to unite and build their power independent of the white structure or they would never be able to build a coalition that would work for both parties and not just the dominant one.
He traveled and lectured extensively throughout the world and was strongly against the Vietnam War and imperialism in general. He was even banned from reentering the United Kingdom after recordings of his speeches were released during a visit in July 1967. Documents declassified in 2022 revealed that the Information Research Department (IRD) of the British Foreign Office also created a fake organization to spread incorrect and incite-worthy information about Stokely.
After the 1968 D.C. riots got out of hand, Stokely was blamed for ensuing violence. He was under almost constant FBI surveillance at this time, and Huey P. Newton, founder of the Black Panther Party, suggested that Stokely was a CIA agent, providing the final nail in the coffin between him and the Panthers. In July 1969, Stokely formally split from the Black Panthers.
Later that year, he married Miriam Makeba and left the US for Guinea. In 1971, he published his second book Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism which fleshed out his socialist Pan-African vision. Years later in 1978, he changed his name to Kwame Ture to honor his patrons. He divorced his first wife, got remarried, and eventually had two sons.
For the last 30 years of his life, Stokely worked full-time as an organizer of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP). He spoke on its behalf on several continents, at college campuses, community centers, and other venues. He was instrumental in strengthening ties between the African and Black liberation movement and several revolutionary and progressive organizations. He was considered the world's most active and prominent advocate of pan-Africanism.
Stokely was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1996. He was treated for a while in Cuba and also received some support from the Nation of Islam. Benefit concerts were held across the US and the government of Trinidad and Tobago awarded him a grant of $1,000 a month to help with his medical expenses. He died in 1998 at the age of 57 in Guinea.
While Stokley was of Caribbean heritage, he was truly an ally in the plight of Black Americans. He helped fight against injustice, discrimination, and oppression while advocating for Black unity, power, and independence. He will always be remembered as a true revolutionary, no matter how hard the dominant society tries to rewrite his story.
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Signed,
Jessica Marie
