Written by Sean P. McKelvey
Last
week I wrote about Bayard Rustin; an essential figure in the civil
rights movement, who seems basically left behind and forgotten by our
history books. Unfortunately, there are a whole slew of activists
that were instrumental in ushering necessary change into American
society – when it needed it most – that are strangely (and
suspiciously, may I add) left out of our history books. This week, I
want to place a special spotlight on Kwame Ture aka Stokely
Carmichael; another shining example of someone incredibly important
yet seemingly left out of history, altogether.
Kwame Ture was born
Stokely Carmichael in Trinidad in 1941. He moved and resided in the
United States of America from the age of 11 until his eventual exile
from the states, which came later in his life. He was exiled after
years of activism and academic critique of the U.S. American system
that still greatly oppressed himself and basically, any and all other
members of his race, at the time, anyway. Stokely Carmichael, was a
very passionate and intelligent civil rights activist, who took a
more controversial stance than other groups. He was certainly more in
line with the Black Panthers and Malcolm X, when he said; “By any
means necessary…” than others touting the idea of complete
nonviolence, and simply turning the other cheek, so to speak. He was
also instrumental in popularizing the Black Power movement,
domestically, here in the United States. He was a vehement
anti-imperialist who was also a prominent figure globally in the
Pan-African movement.
He began developing the
Black Power movement, and while he led the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC), he continued developing and spreading
the ideals of the Black Power movement as “Honorary Prime
Minister,” of the Black Panther Party. He also led the All African
People’s Revolutionary Party. Ture was involved with and in the
Freedom Rides – working tirelessly with the aforementioned
organizations – spending countless hours organizing, lecturing,
writing, and protesting for civil rights over the course of his life.
All of that activism,
unsurprisingly, made him a great target for J. Edgar Hoover and the
FBI at the time; whom had also targeted Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Malcolm X and countless others in the movement, in this period of
time. The COINTELPRO program was one the FBI had developed, at that
time, to specifically target what they (typically, wrongfully)
considered potentially “problematic” public figures, especially
in the civil rights movement. One of the techniques used by
COINTELPRO was called “bad-jacketing;” which was spreading
disinformation campaigns amongst an organization, about an individual
within the organization; specifically to falsely turn that
organization against that individual. The FBI spread a disinformation
campaign amongst the Black Panther Party that painted Ture as an FBI
informant or snitch. This was shortly after he had been named the
party’s “Honorary Prime Minister.” Hoover and the FBI targeted
especially him, because they believed after Malcolm X’s
assassination, he would be the next “black Messiah.” He ended up
fleeing to Ghana to escape the FBI’s persecution of him; so he was
really, de facto, exiled. He was also placed under CIA surveillance
for years after leaving the States as a 2007, a declassified document
stated.
After fleeing the US, he
became the aide to the Guinean president Ahmed Sekou Toure, and was a
student of Ghana’s exiled president Kwame Nkrumah (this is where he
took the name Kwame Ture, as a way to honor the two African leaders).
He continued writing, lecturing and traveling for years. He remained
very active in activism in Africa and throughout the world, until his
death in 1998. This is just a quick overview of the man’s life and
achievements; there is so much more. I could spend pages writing
about it; definitely worth looking up, if this article has interested
you at all.
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