Stokley Carmichael rally marches towards Black Power
On this date in 1966, Stokely Carmichael, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), gave his famous Black Power speech.He spoke at a Greenwood, Mississippi rally debating for Black Power in America. Carmichael defined this as “a call for Black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, and to build a sense of community.” He also advocated that African Americans should form and lead their own organizations and urged a complete rejection of the values of white-American society. Some civil rights groups such as the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) rejected his ideas and accused him of Black racism.
Carmichael also adopted the slogan of “Black is Beautiful,” and advocated a sense of Black pride in African Americans and a rejection of white values of style and appearance. This included adopting Afro hairstyles and African forms of dress. When Carmichael denounced American involvement in the Vietnam War, his passport was confiscated and held for ten months. When his passport was returned, he moved with his wife, Miriam Makeba, to Guinea, West Africa, he later was known as Kwame Ture. In Africa he wrote the book, Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism (1971).
- When Black Power Set Racist America On Fire: A Fifty-Year Retrospective
- How the Black Power Movement Influenced the Civil Rights Movement
- Remembering the Forgotten Organizations that Fought for Black Power
- The Foundations of Black Power
- Snippet from the Past: The First Black Power Conference
- From Black Power to Pan-Africanism (Whitter college Speech, March, 1971)
- Stokely Carmichael’s call for ‘Black Power’ spoke real truth to a flawed nation
- Stokely and the Birth of Black Power
- Stokely Carmichael, Black Power and the age of political repression: Why did America’s ruling elites declare war on the black movement?
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