Continuation of “Stokely Carmichael – Part 8: The Radicalization of the SNCC under Carmichael’s leadership”
On June 16, 1966, during the Mississippi March against Fear Stokely Carmichael took the occasion to proclaim the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s change of direction. After each day’s march the leaders of the participating civil rights organizations usually addressed the Black Mississippi residents.
Whereas the nonviolent integrationist Martin Luther King Jr. continued to appeal to white people’s conscience asking for “Freedom Now“, Stokely Carmichael addressed only the Black frustrated population (which after years of struggle had experienced only scarce progress of their living conditions and their rights) stressing that “… the only thing that’s gonna get us [blacks] freedom is power”.
When the march reached the city of Greenwood, where Carmichael had worked as a project director during the Mississippi Freedom Summer he felt that the moment was ripe to call out for “Black Power“.
Charlie Cobb, a fellow SNCC activist, has recalled the episode – Carmichael’s words and the crowd’s enthusiastic reaction – as follows:
Stokely Carmichael proclaims Black Power during Mississippi March against Fear
… “we been saying freedom for six years and we ain’t got nothin’. What we gonna start saying now is Black Power!” [Carmichael] roared to amens, clapping, and stomping feet. He stood, eyes blazing, fist clenched with one finger pointing, like a wrathful prophet stepped straight from the pages of the Old Testament as Willie Ricks, a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee organizer, leapt to the platform. “BLACK POWER!” Ricks began chanting, “BLACK POWER! What do you want?” “BLACK POWER!” the crowd responded with force that startled a press corps expecting to hear the tones of ‘we shall overcome’. And Stokely Carmichael exploded into the national consciousness.
To be continued…
