The 80th Year Anniversary of Kwame Ture
It is always important to celebrate and analyze the lives of our heroes, especially our late heroes. He was a man who was trailblazer and a bridge figure. What I mean by the phrase of bridge figure is that Kwame Ture was part of both the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement. He was also a leader of the expansive Pan-African Movement too. This year is the 70th year anniversary of Kwame Ture's birth. Kwame Ture wanted to bridge the gap among freedom fighters in order for black liberation to be accomplished. Those diverse movements shaped his ideologies throughout the duration of his life. Born in Trinidad, his life represents the power of black heroic activism. We always salute the Afro-Caribbean community for its love of truth and justice. Kwame Ture was raised in New York City, so he saw racism and capitalistic exploitation first hand. Later, he graduated from the HBCU of Howard University (with its strong legacy and link to the black struggle), and Kwame Ture joined SNCC by the early 1960's. Kwame Ture was jailed, beaten, cursed at, and heavily mistreated by white racists.
Yet, those evils never crushed his spirit. He continued onward with joy, zeal, and passion to advocate for our liberation. That is why he promoted Black Power as a positive means for black people to control their own community and establish human autonomy (in being an independent political and economic force). Ture traveled all over Africa in order to oppose Western imperialism in any of it manifestations. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was his mentor. Though, they disagreed with each other on some issues, they were well known friends and allies of the journey for justice. There are pictures of both men laughing and having fun. Dr. King and Kwame Ture both agreed with opposing the Vietnam War 100%. Both Dr. King and Kwame Ture issued critiques of the system of capitalism in strong terms. Ture temporarily worked with the Black Panthers and later worked to promote Pan-African unity to the day of his passing. His contributions to the black freedom struggle were monumental. Kwame Ture told the truth that we, who are black people, are ultimately Africans regardless of where we were born at. This truth was powerful and inspiring. Kwame Ture saw the strength of black people and viewed non violence as a tactic not as a way of life (as he believed in self-defense). Kwame Ture only gave speeches all over the world about politics. He worked in organizations and institutions that were geared to advancing freedom. Kwame Ture was a great social activist who believed in true justice.
His Early Life
Kwame Ture's early life was very eventful. He was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Ture attended Tranquility School before moving to Harlem, New York City in 1952. He was 11 years old. Kwame Ture's parents immigrated to America when he was 2. He was raised by his grandmother and 2 aunts. He had 3 sisters. His mother was Mabel R. Carmichael, and she was a stewardess for a steamship line. His father, Adolphus, was a carpenter who also worked as a taxi driver. His family left Harlem to live in Van Nest in the East Bronx. Back then, it was an area mostly made up of Jewish and Italian immigrants including their descendants. He gave a 1967 interview to Life Magazine that he was the only black member of the Morris Park Dukes or a youth gang involved in alcohol and petty theft. Kwame Ture and his family were members of the Westchester United Methodist Church. He attended the Bronx High School of Science in NYC. He was known for his high achievement on its standardized entrance examination. Ture boycotted a local White Castle restaurant that didn't hire black people. On student recognition Sunday at his church, Kwame Ture gave an eye opening student sermon to the almost white congregation. He worked with the fellow Bronx Science student Samuel R. Delany in his high school. He graduated from high school in 1960. Then, Kwame Ture attended the historically black University of Howard University at Washington, DC. His professors were great scholars like Sterling Brown, Nathan Hare, and Toni Morrison. Toni Morrison was the late legend who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Kwame Ture and Tom Kahn (the Jewish American student and fellow civil rights activist) helped to fund a 5 day run of Three Penny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. Kwame Ture organized many activist classmates to fight for civil rights. Kwame Ture graduated in 1964 from Howard University with a degree in philosophy. At Howard University, he joined NAG, the Nonviolent Action Group, the Howard campus affiliate of SNCC (or the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee). Kahn introduced Ture to people like Bayard Rustin. Kwame Ture was inspired by the young sit-in movement in the southern Untied States. Later, he became even more active in the overall Civil Rights Movement.
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The Freedom Rides
Kwame was involved in the Freedom Rides in 1961. This was when he was a freshman at Howard University. The Freedom Rides were organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Its goal was to desegregate the interstate buses and bus station restaurants in America. Federal and state desegregated interstate bus travel. Kwame Ture was arrested and spent time in jail. He was arrested and jailed so much that he lost count. It was probably 29 or 32 times that he was arrested. In 1998, he said that the total was fewer than 36 times. On June 4, 1961, he traveled by train from New Orleans to Jackson, Mississippi. He and others wanted to integrate the formerly "white" section on the train. Before getting on the train in New Orleans, they a white mob blocking the way. Kwame Ture said that, "They were shouting. Throwing cans and lit cigarettes at us. Spitting on us." Later, the group was able to board the train. When the group came to Jackson, Kwame Ture and 8 other rides entered a "white" cafeteria. They were charged with disturbing the peace, arrested, and taken to jail. Ture was transferred to the infamous Parchman Penitentiary in Sunflower County, Mississippi along with other Freedom Riders. He was known as being witty and a strong leader among the prisoners. He served 49 days with other activists at Parchman. By the time he was 19, Kwame Ture was the youngest detainee in the summer of 1961.
He spent 53 days at Parchman in a six-by-nine cell. He and his colleagues were allowed to shower only twice a week, were not allowed books or any other personal effects, and were at times placed in maximum security to isolate them. said of the Parchman Farm sheriff:
"The sheriff acted like he was scared of black folks and he came up with some beautiful things. One night he opened up all the windows, put on ten big fans and an air conditioner and dropped the temperature to 38 degrees [Fahrenheit; 3 °C]. All we had on was T-shirts and shorts."
While being hurt one time, Carmichael began singing to the guards, "I'm gonna tell God how you treat me", and the other prisoners joined in.
Kwame Ture kept the group's morale up in prison, often telling jokes with Steve Green and the other Freedom Riders, and making light of their situation. He knew their situation was serious. Ture said: "What with the range of ideology, religious belief, political commitment and background, age, and experience, something interesting was always going on. Because no matter our differences, this group had one thing in common, moral stubbornness. Whatever we believed, we really believed and were not at all shy about advancing. We were where we were only because of our willingness to affirm our beliefs even at the risk of physical injury. So it was never dull on death row."
In a 1964 interview with author Robert Penn Warren, Carmichael reflected on his motives for going on the rides: "I thought I have to go because you've got to keep the issue alive, and you've got to show the Southerners that you're not gonna be scared off, as we've been scared off in the past. And no matter what they do, we're still gonna keep coming back."
The era of SNCC and Black Power
Kwame Ture lived to see the 1963 March on Washington and other events. By 1964, Kwame Ture was a full time field organizer for SNCC in Mississippi. He worked on the Greenwood voting rights project under Bob Moses. Bob Moses was a great SNCC organizer and opposed the Vietnam War as early as the early 1960's. Also, Moses promoted STEM fields for black students and anyone via his Algebra Project. He was involved the 1964 Freedom Summer movement. This movement was about African Americans, white Americans, and others who worked in the Deep South to promote political education, education in general, voting rights, and an end to Jim Crow apartheid. Kwame Ture worked with grassroots black activists like Fannie Lou Hamer during the Freedom Summer era of 1964. Kwame Ture named her as one of his personal heroes as Fannie Lou Hamer was always a great hero. SNCC organizer Joann Gavin wrote that Kwame Ture and Fannie Lou Hamer understood each other greatly. Ture worked with Gloria Richardson. Gloria Richardson led the SNCC chapter in Cambridge, Maryland. During a protest with Richardson in Maryland in June 1964, Kwame Ture was hit directly in a chemical gas attack by the National Guard and had to be hospitalized. He soon became project director for Mississippi's 2nd congressional district, made up largely of the counties of the Mississippi Delta. At that time, most black people in Mississippi had been disfranchised since the passage of a new constitution in 1890. The summer project was to prepare them to register to vote and conduct a parallel registration movement to demonstrate how much people wanted to vote. Grassroots activists organized the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), as the regular Democratic Party did not represent African Americans in the state.
At the end of Freedom Summer, Kwame Ture went to the 1964 Democratic Convention in support of the MFDP, which sought to have its delegation seated. But the MFDP delegates were refused voting rights by the Democratic National Committee, which chose to seat the regular white Jim Crow delegation. That is why Fannie Lou Hamer gave her famous speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention at Altantic City, New Jersey. She said, "Is this America?" She wanted total representation of MFDP delegates. Kwame Ture, along with many SNCC staff members, left the convention with a profound sense of disillusionment in the American political system, and what he later called "totalitarian liberal opinion." He said, "what the liberal really wants is to bring about change which will not in any way endanger his position." Liberalism is right that people should have equal rights. The weakness of the anti-Communist liberalism was that it fundamentally wanted reforms, not revolutionary change. After the 1964 Democratic Convention, many SNCC members rejected the tokenism from the Democratic Party establishment to embrace revolutionary philosophies. Some of them traveled into Africa to gain more anti-imperialist consciousness.
From after the 1964 Democratic National Convention, Kwame Ture grown a suspicion and had an aversion to work with the Democratic Party. People ought to know that historically, both the Republicans and the Democrats have a long history of racism and promoting the status quo. It is just that now in 2021, the GOP is so far over the edge, that the GOP is worst than the Democrats today. Kwame Ture left the MFDP after the MFDP was disrespected. Kwame explored SNCC projects in Alabama by 1965. During the period of the Selma to Montgomery marches, James Forman recruited him to participate in a "second front" to stage protests at the Alabama State Capitol in March 1965. Carmichael became disillusioned with the growing struggles between SNCC and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which opposed Forman's strategy. He thought SCLC was working with affiliated black churches to undercut it. He was also frustrated to be drawn again into nonviolent confrontations with police, which he no longer found empowering. After seeing protesters brutally beaten again, he collapsed from stress, and his colleagues urged him to leave the city. Within a week, Ture returned to protesting at Selma. He was involved in the final Selma march along Route 80 to the state capitol at Montgomery, Alabama. Yet, on March 23, 1965, Kwame Ture and some in SNCC (who were involved in the march) refused to complete the march. They used the grassroots program in Lowndes County along the march route. They talked with the local residents. They promoted voter registration and political empowerment. Lowndes County was a place where white racist violence was commonplace. Before, even the SCLC and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. tried and failed to organize its black residents. From 1877 to 1950, Lowndes County had 14 documented lynchings of African Americans.. Kwame Ture and the SNCC activists who accompanied him also struggled in Lowndes, as local residents were at first wary of their presence. Yet, they later achieved greater success as a result of a partnership with local activist John Hulett and other local leaders. Kwame Ture supported the black independent party at Lowndes County that used the black panther as its symbol.
In 1965, Kwame Ture in the black majority Lowndes County area helped to increase the number of registered black voters from 70 to 2,6000 voters. This was 300 more than the number of registered white voters. Black voters back then were disfranchised by Alabama's constitution, passed by white Democrats in 1901. After the Congressional passage in August of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the federal government was authorized to oversee and enforce their rights. There was still tremendous resistance from wary residents. There was an important breakthrough occurred when, while he was handing out voter registration material at a local school, two policemen confronted Kwame Ture and ordered him to leave. He refused, and avoided arrest after challenging the two officers to do so. As word of this incident spread, Kwame Ture and the SNCC activists who stayed with him in Lowndes gained more respect from local residents and started working with Hulett and other local leaders. With the objective of registering African American voters, Carmichael, Hulett and their local allies formed the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO). The LCFO was a party that had the black panther as its mascot, over the white-dominated local Democratic Party, whose mascot was a white rooster. Since federal protection from violent voter suppression by the Ku Klux Klan and other white opponents was sporadic, most Lowndes County activists openly carried arms.
Hulett was LCFO's chairperson, and he was one of the first 2 African Americans whose voter registration was successfully processed in Lowndes County. Black residents and voters outnumbered white people in Lowndes, but their candidate lost the countywide election in 1965. In 1966, many LCFO candidates ran for office in the general election but lost. In 1970, the LCFO merged with the statewide Democratic Party and former LCFO candidates including Hulett won their first offices in the county. Kwame Ture became chairman of SNCC in 1966. Previously, John Lewis was the Chairman. John Lewis was a great civil rights activist in his own right. Lewis would go on to be elected to Congress. The shooting of James Meredith would change Kwame Ture and the rest of the black freedom movement forever and ever. In 1966, James Meredith started a solitary March Against Fear in early June. He wanted to march from Memphis to Jackson, Mississippi to promote the freedom of black people. He only wanted individual black men to join him not large civil rights organizations or leaders involved. On his 2nd day of marching, Meredith was shot and wounded by a white sniper. Meredith was in the hospital. Civil rights leaders vowed to finish the march in his name. Kwame Ture joined Dr. King, Floyd McKissick, Cleveland Sellers, and others to continue Meredith's march. Kwame Ture was arrested in Greenwood, Mississippi during the march. After his release, he gave his first Black Power speech at the rally on that night. Black Power to Kwame Ture about about black people to be unified, to recognize their heritage, and to build up organizations and institutions to liberate black humanity. According to historian David J. Garrow, a few days after Carmichael spoke about Black Power at the rally during "Meredith March Against Fear", he told King: "Martin, I deliberately decided to raise this issue on the march in order to give it a national forum and force you to take a stand for Black Power." King responded, "I have been used before. One more time won't hurt."
A Time of Transition (1967-1969)
Kwame Ture revolutionized the Black Power movement, but the concept of Black Power existed for a long time before the 1960's. Black Power was used by many, especially young African Americans, to promote freedom. Black Power grew because of many factors. The Civil Rights Movement fought to make legitimate laws to exist like the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Yet, the problem was that still millions of black people had police brutality, economic inequality (and other forms of economic oppression), lax education, housing discrimination, poverty, and other problems as a product of a racist, exploitative capitalist system. That is why the movement of Black Power flourished back in the 1960's and beyond. Progress on the civil rights front was slow. Much of the leadership of the Civil Rights Movement (not all people in it) were infiltrated by corporations and establishment figures who supported the unjust Vietnam War and other reformist policies that permitted capitalist reformism not revolutionary change. The key to liberation is empowering black people, all oppressed people, and the working class via a redistribution of economic and political power (as most economic and political power back then and today are centralized mostly under the control of the one percent). You have to empower the power collectively in order for true freedom to exist. According to Kwame Ture, "Black Power meant black people coming together to form a political force and either electing representatives or forcing their representatives to speak to their needs [rather than relying on established parties]." To Kwame Ture, Black Power was a call of black political, economic independence. Kwame Ture was also influenced by the work of Frantz Fanon and his landmark book called, "The Wretched of the Earth," along with others such as Malcolm X, etc. Kwame Ture led SNCC to become more pro-Black Power and more nationalistic. The group focused on Black Power as its core goal and ideology.
There was the Atlanta Project in 1966 which was an experiment to see how Black Power would function under SNCC. It was led by the local leadership of Bill Ware. The program wanted to have a voter drive to promote the candidacy of Julian Bond (who opposed the Vietnam War by his words in public in 1966). Julian Bond ran a campaign for an Atlanta district for a seat in the Georgia State Legislature. Ware excluded Northern white SNCC members from working on this drive. Kwame initially opposed this decision but changed his mind. Me personally, I have no problem with people of any color working on a voter drive as long as revolutionary change is the goal. At the urging of the Atlanta Project, the issue of white members in SNCC came up for a vote. Kwame Ture ultimately sided with those calling for the expulsion of whites. Ture said that white people should organize poor white southern communities, of which there were plenty, while SNCC focused on promoting African-American self-reliance through Black Power. Kwame Ture wasn't a racist. He just felt that the best thing that white people can do is to organize in their communities to eliminate racism. You can disagree with him, but this is how he felt. You have to realize that Kwame Ture was a victim of false imprisonment, violence, discrimination, and racial oppression for years. Kwame Ture always considered nonviolence a tactic not a way of life. Dr. King believed in nonviolence as a way of life. Yet, even Dr. King said that there is nothing wrong with a family having gun at their homes for self defense. Dr. King said that he would forsake his pacifism to fight the Nazis during WWII as Hitler was a genocidal, wicked human being.
Dr. King and Ture were friends despite their disagreements on some issues. Kwame Ture believed that black people shouldn't use integration as an excuse to be submissive under token middle class mainstream values. Life is bigger than that. He said that sitting next to white people alone will not solve the problem of racism and oppression (he's right on that point). Kwame Ture said the following words:
"...Now we maintain that in the past six years or so, this country has been feeding us a "thalidomide drug of integration", and that some Negroes have been walking down a dream street talking about sitting next to white people; and that that does not begin to solve the problem; that when we went to Mississippi we did not go to sit next to Ross Barnett; we did not go to sit next to Jim Clark; we went to get them out of our way; and that people ought to understand that; that we were never fighting for the right to integrate, we were fighting against white supremacy. Now, then, in order to understand white supremacy we must dismiss the fallacious notion that white people can give anybody their freedom. No man can give anybody his freedom. A man is born free. You may enslave a man after he is born free, and that is in fact what this country does. It enslaves black people after they're born, so that the only acts that white people can do is to stop denying black people their freedom; that is, they must stop denying freedom. They never give it to anyone..."
Kwame Ture always had skepticism over American society. Kwame Ture said that, "in order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none." Kwame Ture's leadership time in SNCC was a time of coalition building. He and SNCC had a coalition with many progressive groups like the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). SNCC encouraged the SDS to focus on revolutionary anti-draft resistance as the Vietnam War was unjust. At an SDS-organized conference at UC Berkeley in October 1966, Carmichael challenged the white left to escalate their resistance to the military draft in a manner similar to the black movement. For a time in 1967, he considered an alliance with Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation, and generally supported IAF's work in Rochester's and Buffalo's black communities. One issue of SNCC was the issue of sex. Women made up a large part of SNCC, and tons of women rightfully wanted equality. Kwame Ture made the comment that the best position of women are prone. I don't agree with Ture saying those words, even if he was joking. He made those words on November 1964. He was speaking in response to a SNCC position paper written by his friends Casey Hayden and Mary E. King on the position of women in the movement. In the course of an irreverent comedy monologue he performed at a party after SNCC's Waveland conference, Kwame Ture said, "The position of women in the movement is prone."
Ture's Carmichael's colleague, John Lewis, stated in his autobiography, March, that the comment was a joke, uttered as Carmichael and other SNCC officials were "blowing off steam" following the adjournment of a meeting at a staff retreat in Waveland, Mississippi. When asked about the comment, former SNCC field secretary Casey Hayden stated: "Our paper on the position of women came up, and Stokely in his hipster rap comedic way joked that 'the proper position of women in SNCC is prone'. I laughed, he laughed, we all laughed. Stokely was a friend of mine." In her memoir, Mary E. King wrote that Kwame Ture was "poking fun at his own attitudes" and that "Casey and I felt, and continue to feel, that Stokely was one of the most responsive men at the time that our anonymous paper appeared in 1964."
Kwame Ture appointed several women to posts as project directors during his tenure as chairman of SNCC; by the latter half of the 1960's (considered to be the "Black Power era"), more women were in charge of SNCC projects than during the first half. According to historian David J. Garrow, a few days after Ture spoke about Black Power at the rally during "Meredith March Against Fear", he told King: "Martin, I deliberately decided to raise this issue on the march in order to give it a national forum and force you to take a stand for Black Power." King responded, "I have been used before. One more time won't hurt."
One of the views that I agree with Kwame Ture on 100 percent was his total opposition to the Vietnam War. One of SNCC's greatest accomplishments was educating the public on the brutal, wicked Vietnam War. SNCC made its first actions against the military draft and the Vietnam War under Kwame Ture's leadership. He popularized the oft-repeated anti-draft slogan "H__ no, we won't go!" during this time." By 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in public strongly condemning the Vietnam War. Kwame Ture was with him 100 percent when Dr. King gave speeches to condemn the war. Both of them united to fight the evil of that war. Dr. King's advisors cautioned him opposing the Vietnam War would cost him LBJ's support and financial support for SCLC. Dr. King knew all of this and still proceeded. Dr. Martin Luther King's views on Black Power were nuisance. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. agreed with Black Power on its promotion of political and economic power growth for black people as he said that black people in America live in a state of neo-colonialism. Dr. King believed in self determination among black people. Dr. King said that Black is Beautiful. Dr. King rejected separatism. Kwame Ture was at the front row of Dr. Martin Luther King's church when Dr. King promoted being against the Vietnam War. TIME and the NY Times had authors who disrespected Dr. King via numerous editorials for his views.
Even moderate bourgeoisie civil rights leaders like Roy Wilkins opposed Dr. King for his anti-Vietnam War views, but Dr. King stood strong in his convictions. It would be until 1969 and beyond when those moderate civil rights leaders like Wilkins disagreed with the Vietnam War. Dr. King spoke out against the war as early as 1964, but he tempered those views in public in 1966 until he saw the kids burned by napalm on a cover of a magazine. Then, he wrote his final book in Jamaica and planned an all out assault on the evil of militarism. Kwame Ture and Dr. King talked in private about anti-imperialism and other matters. In May 1967, Kwame Ture stepped down as chairman of SNCC. H. Rap Brown replaced him. SNCC focused on group consensus. They rejected hierarchical leadership. Many SNCC members didn't like what they perceive to be Ture's "celebrity status." SNCC leaders had begun to refer to him as "Stokely Starmichael" and criticized his habit of making policy announcements independently, before achieving internal agreement. According to historian Clayborne Carson, Kwame Ture did not protest the transfer of power and was "eager to relinquish the chair." It is sometimes mistakenly reported that Kwame Ture left SNCC completely at this time and joined the Black Panther Party, but that did not occur until 1968. SNCC officially ended its relationship with Kwame Ture in August 1968; in a statement, Philip Hutchings wrote, "It has been apparent for some time that SNCC and Stokely Carmichael were moving in different directions."
During this time, the FBI used COINTELPRO (or counter intelligence) to harm the black freedom movement. J. Edgar Hoover hated black liberation groups. COINTELPRO used slander and violence against their targets. Hoover considered Dr. King, SNCC, Black Panthers, and other revolutionary groups as enemies of the U.S. government. Hoover didn't want a Black Messiah to motivate black people to enact social change. Kwame Ture later accepted the position of Honorary Prime Minister in the Black Panther Party. He was on the SNCC staff for a time. Ture tried to have a merger of SNCC and the Black Panthers. A March 4, 1968 memo from Hoover states his fear of the rise of a Black Nationalist "messiah" and that Carmichael alone had the "necessary charisma to be a real threat in this way." In July 1968, Hoover stepped up his efforts to divide the black power movement. Declassified documents show he launched a plan to undermine the SNCC-Panther merger, as well as to "bad-jacket" Ture as a CIA agent (which is a slanderous lie). Both efforts were largely successful: Ture was expelled from SNCC that year, and some of the Panthers began to denounce him, putting him at grave personal risk. After not being SNCC chair, Kwame Ture wrote the book entitled, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation (1967) with Charles V. Hamilton. It is a first-person reflection on his experiences in SNCC and his dissatisfaction with the direction of the Civil Rights Movement in the late 1960's. Throughout the work he directly and indirectly criticized the established leadership of the SCLC and NAACP for their tactics and results, often claiming that they were accepting symbols instead of change.
He promoted what he calls "political modernization." This idea included three major concepts: "1) questioning old values and institutions of the society; 2) searching for new and different forms of political structure to solve political and economic problems; and, 3) broadening the base of political participation to include more people in the decision-making process." By questioning "old values and institutions," Kwame Ture was referring not only to the established Black leadership of the time but also to the values and institutions of the nation as a whole. He criticized the emphasis on the American "middle-class." "The values," he said, "of that class are based on material aggrandizement, not the expansion of humanity." Kwame Ture believed that blacks were being lured to enter the "middle-class" as a trap, in which they would be assimilated into the white world by turning their backs on others of their race who were still suffering. This assimilation, he thought, was an inherent indictment of blackness and validation of whiteness as the preferred state. He said, "Thus we reject the goal of assimilation into middle-class America because the values of that class are in themselves anti-humanist and because that class as a social force perpetuates racism." History has shown many examples of some black people leaving behind the black collective to promote white racist interests (like Clarence Thomas, Jesse Lee Peterson, Candace Owens, etc.). Kwame Ture was right on that view.
Kwame Ture wanted to research forms of political institutions to solve political and economic problems. Back then, SCLC and the NAACP were in existence. Both groups were based on nonviolence and using legal and legislative change within U.S. system. Kwame Ture had skepticism of using existing systems to solve the problem of oppression. He said that the Mississippi Freedom Democrats and the 1966 local election in Lowndes County, and the political history of Tuskegee Alabama were examples of black people trying to change the system from within the system. To him, these plans ultimately failed to achieve more than the bare minimum. He believed that you can't reinforce the political and legal structures that perpetuate racism. Some people promoted the view of coalition as a way to go forward in terms of the Civil Rights Movement. Kwame Ture wanted black people to build and unite in growing power independent of mainstream society as a perquisite for coalitions to happen. The anti-colonial movements of Africa and Latin America influenced Kwame Ture's thinking. Kwame Ture traveled into Guinea, North Vietnam, China, and Cuba to speak to many people. He was speaking everywhere. He advocated his vision of Black Power. He also lamented the 1967 Marxist leader Che Guevara.
Kwame Ture visited the United Kingdom in July 1967 to attend the Dialectics of Liberation conference. After recordings of his speeches were released by the organizers, the Institute of Phenomenological Studies, he was banned from reentering Britain. In August 1967, a Cuban government magazine reported that Ture met with Fidel Castro for three days and called it "the most educational, most interesting, and the best apprenticeship of [my] public life." Because relations with Cuba were prohibited at the time, after his return to the US, the government withdrew his passport. In December 1967, he traveled to France to attend an antiwar rally. Fidel Castro has a complex legacy. Castro was right to oppose Western imperialism (and helping many black people), but many of his policies violated human civil liberties as he was a Stalinist (we know that Stalin oppressed Trotsykites in the Soviet Union). In France, Kwame Ture was detained by police and ordered to leave the next day, but government officials eventually intervened and allowed him to stay. Kwame Ture was in Washington, D.C. on April 5, 1968. This was on the night after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As we know, Dr. King became more revolutionary than his racist critics and many of those hypocritical nationalists (not all nationalists are hypocrites. I want to make that clear). Dr. King wanted reparations for black Americans, he fought for the Poor People's Campaign to make progressive economic change (in using billions of dollars to fight poverty, build housing, have a guaranteed income, etc. Dr. King was inspired to promote the Poor People's Campaign from Mary Wright Edelman and the welfare rights movement), and he supported Memphis sanitation workers to have unions plus collective bargaining. . Kwame Ture led a group through the streets, demanding that businesses close out of respect. He tried to prevent violence, but the situation escalated beyond his control. Due to his reputation being smeared as provocateur, the news media falsely blamed Kwame Ture for the ensuing violence as mobs rioted along U Street and other areas of black commercial development. During the next day, Kwame Ture held a press conference predicting mass racial violence in the streets.
Since moving to Washington, D.C., Kwame Ture had been under nearly constant FBI surveillance. After the riots, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover instructed a team of agents to find evidence connecting Kwame Ture to them. He was also subjected to COINTELPRO's bad-jacketing technique. Huey P. Newton suggested Carmichael was a CIA agent. That untruth led to Kwame Ture's break with the Panthers and his exile from the U.S. the following year. In 1968, Kwame Ture married the South African singer and activist Miriam Makeba. They left America for Guinea in 1969. He was an aide to Guinea President Ahmed Sekou Toure and a student of the exiled Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah. Makeba was appointed Guinea's official delegate to the Untied Nations. Three months after his arrival in Guinea, in July 1969, Carmichael published a formal leaving of the Black Panthers. Kwame Ture felt that the Black Panthers should first unite more with black people instead of favoring alliances with what he called "white radicals." The Black Panthers wanted white progressive activists to help them in their movement. Kwame Ture wanted the white activists to organize in their communities first before any long term alliance would be created with black people.
Kwame Ture and the Black Panthers had the same goal of black liberation, but they used different tactics. It's like 2 relatives wanting the same goal, but they have 2 different approaches in getting to the same goal. The Black Panthers and Kwame Ture acted courageous to fight for our freedom. After 1969, Kwame Ture would be more anti-capitalist, and more pro-socialist. SNCC evolved from being Ella Baker inspired to ending being a Nationalist group by the 1970's. The Black Panthers Party for Self-Defense was formed by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in 1966. They were right to advocate for self defense, being against police brutality, and opposing capitalist exploitation. Their Ten Point Program outlining their ideals were groundbreaking. Many Black Panthers were heroes who stood up for the human rights of black people. We know of their names from Fred Hampton to Terika Lewis. Many of them omitted the need to develop a class consciousness to fight for the liberation of the poor and the working class. In other words, you will need a coalition of the poor, the homeless, black people, the oppressed, and working class (making up labor) in order to fight for comprehensive social change. The concept of Black Power would be embraced by the black left (with the Black Panthers), the political nationalists, the cultural nationalists, and the black right (who were Republicans or those who love black capitalism). Black solidarity and unity is important along with using class struggle (as you can't be a revolutionary without addressing economic inequality, health care issues, housing, education, and poverty in general) in order to achieve goals too. We are human and we are multidimensional. In other words, I am a black man, my ancestors came from Africa, I was born in America, I'm from an urban environment, and I live in Virginia. It takes multi-dimensional actions in order to achieve black liberation. Also, black unity is always important to promote.
International Consciousness and Pan-Africanism
Kwame Ture had his official name change to Kwame Ture (from Stokley Carmichael) in 1978 in honor of Nkrumah and Toure. They were his patrons. People like his friends called him both names, and he didn't mind it. Kwame blamed the CIA for tracking him. We know that in 2007, by declassified documents, the CIA tracked him from 1968 as part of their surveillance of black activists abroad. The surveillance continued for many years. When Ture was in Guinea, he traveled, wrote literature, and spoke in support of international leftist movements. By 1971, he published his collected essays in a 2nd book entitled, "Stokley Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism." The book supported his life long philosophy of socialist Pan-Africanism. He retained that view for the rest of his life. He always answered the phone by announcing "Ready for the Revolution!" since the late 1970's. In 1986, two years after Sékou Touré's death, the military regime that took his place arrested Carmichael for his association with Touré, and jailed him for three days on suspicion of attempting to overthrow the government. Although Touré was known for jailing and torturing his opponents (some 50,000 people are believed to have been killed under his regime), Kwame Ture had never publicly criticized the man he named himself after. The issue was that even Ahmed Sekou Toure made the mistake of embracing a bourgeois nationalism. The deal is that after imperialism was legitimately overthrown by African leaders (after the end of World War II), some African nations followed a capitalist version of nationalism that didn't address readily the needs of the oppressed and the workers. The non-critical attitude of many bourgeois nationalist states has always been an error. Even now, many Western states promote neo-colonialism in Africa.
During the last 30 years of Kwame Ture's life, he promoted his All-African People's Revolutionary Party (A-AAPRP). His mentor was Nkrumah. Kwame Ture wanted ideas to help the entire African Diaspora. He was a Central Committee member during his association with the A-APRP and made many speeches on the party's behalf. Ture worked overtly and covertly to "Take Nkrumah Back to Ghana" (according to the movement's slogan). He became a member of the Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG), the revolutionary ruling party. He sought Nkrumah's permission to launch the All-African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP), which Nkrumah had called for in his book Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare. After several discussions, Nkrumah gave his blessing. The A-APRP still exists to this day in 2021. He was a great organizer of the party. Kwame Ture went to many continents, at college campuses, community center, and other venues. He was one man who helped to strengthen ties between the African/Black liberation movement and other revolutionary, progressive organization among African and non-African peoples. Notable among them were the American Indian Movement (AIM) of the United States, New Jewel Movement (Grenada), National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) of Trinidad and Tobago, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Pan Africanist Congress (South Africa) and the Irish Republican Socialist Party. He celebrated African Liberation Day in May. The African Liberation Day was celebrated yearly at D.C. at MeriianHill Park (Malcolm X Park) at 16th and W. Streets, NW. While making his home in Guinea, Ture traveled frequently. The government of Trinidad and Tobago barred him from lecturing in the country for fear that he would cause disturbances among black Trinidadians. In the last quarter of the 20th century, Ture became the world's most active and prominent exponent of pan-Africanism, defined by Nkrumah and the A-APRP as "The Liberation and Unification of Africa Under Scientific Socialism."
Kwame Ture would speak to thousands of people in universities like at his alma mater Howard University and other places. The Party would recruit students and other young people. He wanted black people in America to be Africans and develop their political consciousness for liberation. The A-APRP organized the All African Women's Revolutionary Union and the Sammy Younge Jr. Brigade (named after the first black college student to die during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement) as complement organizations. Kwame Ture and Fidel Castro admired each other as both of them opposed imperialism. I agree with Fidel Castro on some issues and disagree with him on other issues (especially on human rights and civil liberty issues). Kwame Ture's last years on Earth would be filled with inspiration and illness.
His Later Years and Passing
Kwame Ture was ill before his passing. He gave his final speech at Howard University. A standing-room-only crowd in Rankin Chapel paid tribute to him, and he spoke boldly, as usual. A small group of student leaders from Howard and a former Party member traveled to Harlem (Sugar Hill) in New York City to bid Ture farewell shortly before his final return to Guinea. Also present that evening were Kathleen Cleaver and another Black Panther, Dhoruba bin Wahad. Ture was in good spirits though in pain. The group included men and women born in Africa, South America, the Caribbean, as well as the USA. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1996. Ture was treated for a period in Cuba. He was protected by the Nation of Islam. Benefit concerts for Kwame Ture were held in Denver, New York, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. to help with is medical expenses. The government of Trinidad and Tobago, where he was born, awarded him a grant of $1,000 a month for the same purpose.
He went to New York, where he was treated for two years at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, before returning to Guinea. In a final interview given in April 1998 to The Washington Post, Ture criticized the limited economic and electoral progress made by African Americans in the U.S. during the previous 30 years. He acknowledged that blacks had won election to the mayor's office in major cities, but said that, as the mayors' power had generally diminished over earlier decades, such progress was essentially meaningless. In 1998, Ture died of prostate at the age of 57 years old in Conakry, Guina. He believed that the FBI infected him with cancer in an assassination attempt. The civil rights leader Jesse Jackson spoke in celebration of Ture's life, saying: "He was one of our generation who was determined to give his life to transforming America and Africa. He was committed to ending racial apartheid in our country. He helped to bring those walls down." NAACP Chair Julian Bond said that Kwame Ture "ought to be remembered for having spent almost every moment of his adult life trying to advance the cause of black liberation." Kwame Ture had 2 sons, 3 sisters, and his mother. He once married the Guinea doctor Marlyatou Barry. His son, Bokar, was born in 1981.
-Kwame Ture's speech at Whittier College in Whittier, California (on March 22, 1971).
Kwame Ture's Legacy
The legacy of Kwame Ture is rather extensive and revolutionary. He was a man who worked in both the American Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement. He also lived to help expand the Pan-African movement worldwide. He was a man born in the Caribbean. He was raised in New York City and was educated heavily in the historic, great HBCU of Howard University. His life has been about experience. He not only wrote about political theories about economics and sociology. Kwame Ture was active to work in social movements during his dealings in SNCC and other organizations. He saw the viciousness of white racism and the capitalist system exploiting human workers, the poor, and the oppressed the world over. He was illegally monitored by the FBI and the CIA. So, Kwame Ture was a black man who realized that this fight for liberation is a serious one. By the 1960's, young people saw the contradiction of a society claiming to be for democracy, but its institutions oppressed black people and others in a stark reality. That is why Kwame Ture popularized the phrase of "institutional racism" to get people to see how racism is not just about individual prejudice, false views, and epithets. It is a systematic evil that has ruined the lives of so many of our Brothers and our Sisters. Kwame Ture was part of the Freedom Rides, he was jailed, and he worked with so many activists in desiring justice. His speech in favor of Black Power at Greenwood, Mississippi shook up the world in 1966. Black Power has been misinterpreted, but its real meaning is about black self-determination, independence, love of Blackness, and development of black communities. It has been criticized as separatist by moderate civil rights leaders like Roy Wilkins and by white conservatives, but Black Power is not offensive nor violent. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has stated, Black Power is call for human dignity and for a sense of human expression:
“Black Power, in its broad and positive meaning, is a call to black people to amass the political and economic strength to achieve their legitimate goals. No one can deny that the Negro is in dire need of this kind of legitimate power. Indeed, one of the great problems that the Negro confronts is his lack of power. From the old plantations of the South to the newer ghettos of the North, the Negro has been confined to a life of voicelessness and powerlessness. …The plantation and the ghetto were created by those who had power both to confine those who had no power and to perpetuate their powerlessness. The problem of transforming the ghetto is, therefore, a problem of power – a confrontation between the forces of power demanding change and the forces of power dedicated to preserving the status quo.” (Where Do We Go From Here, pp. 36-37).
“Black Power is a call for the pooling of black financial resources to achieve economic security. …If Black Power means the development of this kind of strength within the Negro community, then it is a quest for basic, necessary, legitimate power. Finally, Black Power is a psychological call to manhood.” (Where Do We Go, p. 38).
“Black is beautiful and as beautiful as any other color. When we believe that, this is something very necessary, this is something very constructive and very creative. So, the concept of Black Power is something we are certainly able to understand and accept. …So as we talk about power, we must always see power as the right use of strength.” ((SCLC Staff retreat, Frogmore, SC, 11/14).
Therefore, talking about Black Power is not racist nor heinous. It was a necessary evolution during the overall black freedom struggle where many black activists sought to cultivate a more militant expression of seeking true black liberation. Black Power targeted the racist system of oppression and desired an end to racism, poverty, imperialism, and other evils. It sought black political, cultural, and economic, and social self determination along with loving Blackness. The black freedom movement is multifaceted and diverse not monolithic. That is why Kwame Ture marched with Dr. King. We need a diverse amount of black people among many walks of life to get that liberation that we all desire. Kwame Ture left SNCC and the Black Panthers over disagreements of how to move forward. Although, Kwame Ture continued in his quest for black liberaiton. That is why I'm not surprised at Bill Clinton's disrespectful lies about Kwame Ture during John Lewis' funeral. It was especially offensive that Bill did this at Lewis' funeral when that time is about honoring the civil rights hero John Lewis. Yes, I haven't forgotten about Willie. The neo-liberal Bill Clinton has some nerve when he was the one who passed law expanding the prison industrial complex, grew welfare reform, and did nothing to save the lives of the suffering people in Rwanda. Ture was not perfect. I don't make justifications for his imperfections.
Yet, Kwame Ture was right to advocate for Pan African unity. He was right to disagree with imperialism and capitalist exploitation. He was right to disagree with the unjust Vietnam War. He was right to speak out and stand up against oppression. Now, we realize Kwame Ture's gifts as motivation for us to continue forward in our goals. It is important for opposing racism and having a class consciousness too. In other words, we should eliminate racial disparities, eliminate racial discrimination, and eliminate class oppression at the same time (as workers deserve justice too just like black people). Kwame Ture was a bridge between civil rights leaders and Pan-African activists. In fact, Dr. King and Kwame Ture were friends and admired each other's courage, political insights, and tenacity. Kwame Ture and John Lewis were friends too as both of them were members of SNCC. Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer taught Kwame Ture many lessons about grassroots organizing and social consciousness. He saw many movements for change, and he advocated a revolutionary change in our world. Kwame Ture saw black people globally as Africans, and he was right. Part of Kwame Ture's legacy was that his love for the Motherland of Africa as so great, that he motivated a lot of more human beings to passionately love Africa too. His legacy is forever appreciated by me and others.
Rest in Power Brother Kwame Ture.
-'Ase.
By Timothy
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