Stokely Carmichael | |
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Stokely Carmichael expounds on "black power" idea in 1967 at Michigan State University
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4th Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee | |
In office May 1966 – June 1967 |
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Preceded by | John Lewis |
Succeeded by | H. Rap Brown |
Personal details | |
Born |
Stokely Carmichael June 29, 1941 Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago |
Died | November 15, 1998 Conakry, Guinea |
(aged 57)
Spouse(s) | Miriam Makeba |
Children | 2 |
Education | The Bronx High School of Science (1960) |
Alma mater |
Howard University (B.A., Philosophy, 1964) |
"Life and Career of Kwame Ture", C-SPAN |
"Memorial Service for Kwame Ture", C-SPAN |
Kwame Ture (born Stokely Carmichael, June 29, 1941 – November 15, 1998) was a Trinidadian-American who became a prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement and the global Pan-African movement. He grew up in the United States from the age of 11 and became an activist while he attended Howard University. He would eventually become active in the Black Power movement, first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party (BPP), and finally as a leader of the All-African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP).
Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Stokely Carmichael attended Tranquility School there before moving to Harlem, New York, in 1952 at the age of 11, to rejoin his parents who had emigrated to the United States when he was age two, leaving him with his grandmother and two aunts. He had three sisters.
His mother Mabel R. Carmichael was a stewardess for a steamship line. His father Adolphus was a carpenter who also worked as a taxi driver. The reunited Carmichael family eventually left Harlem to live in Van Nest in the East Bronx, at that time an aging neighborhood with residents who were primarily Jewish and Italian immigrants and descendants. According to a 1967 interview he gave to Life Magazine, Carmichael was the only black member of the Morris Park Dukes, a youth gang involved in alcohol and petty theft.
He attended the elite, selective Bronx High School of Science in New York, with entrance based on academic performance.