Stokely Carmichael

Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad on June 29, 1941, Stokely Carmichael moved to Harlem, New York at age eleven. While studying philosophy at Howard University, he joined the Nonviolent Action Group and participated in the historic 1961 Freedom Rides, enduring brutal beatings and 49 days of imprisonment at Mississippi's Parchman State Penitentiary. Rising to field organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Lowndes County, Alabama, Carmichael helped register disenfranchised Black voters and co-founded the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, which adopted the black panther as its emblem. Elected Chairman of SNCC in May 1966, Carmichael made history on June 16, 1966, during the March Against Fear in Greenwood, Mississippi, when he stepped onto the rally platform after his 27th arrest and cried: 'We been saying freedom for six years and we ain't got nothin'. What we gonna start sayin' now is Black Power!' The call transformed the Civil Rights Movement from moral appeals for integration into an assertive crusade for Black self-determination, economic autonomy, and racial pride. In 1967, he co-authored 'Black Power: The Politics of Liberation' with Charles V. Hamilton. Moving to Guinea in 1969, he adopted the name Kwame Ture in honor of African socialist leaders Kwame Nkrumah and Ahmed Sékou Touré, spending the remainder of his life organizing the All-African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP). Passing away in Conakry on November 15, 1998, his answer to every telephone call remained: 'Ready for the Revolution!'.