“You went to Africa with the Bible, we had the land. When you left Africa, you had the land and we had the Bible.”

– Kwame Ture (formerly known as Stokely Carmichael)

For those of you who’ve been following this blog, you know how invested I am in Black History. It feels like the more research I do the more prideful and obsessive I become in searching for more, specifically the Freedom Fighters. So I want to highlight an activist whose name alone still resonates today. Kwame Ture (formerly known as Stokely Carmichael).

Kwame Ture was a Civil Rights Activist and Pan-Africanist who founded the Black Power Movement, espousing self-defense, self-determination, political/economic power, and racial pride. West-Indian-born, Ture moved to New York City in 1952 and later attended Howard University in 1960. He joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Nonviolent Action Group. Ture later became frustrated with SNCC’s nonviolent approach and after becoming chairman, founded the term “Black Power”; which was viewed as apprehension by whites. He eventually left the United States in 1969 and moved to Guinea, West Africa where he changed his name in honor of Kwame Nkrumah and Sékou Touré.

I want to share a few speeches from Kwame Ture that I found interesting. If you’d like to discuss any of the content, feel free to comment below.

Until Next Time…

(Sources)

Stokely Carmichael WEST INDIAN-AMERICAN ACTIVIST. (n.d.). Retrieved March 4, 2019, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stokely-Carmichael