Stokely Carmichael
Stokely Carmichael also known as Kwame Toure, was a Black Power and Pan-Africanist activist born in Trinidad, moved to the United States, then later in his life, Guinea. Leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panthers.
Sourced
- You see that honky McNamara on television? He ain't nothing but a racist. He says, "Yes, we are going to draft thirty percent of the Negroes in the Army. This is where they can have equal opportunity. Yeah. Yes… yes it's true that they are only ten percent of the population, but this is a better chance for them." When that honky talk about drafting thirty percent black people, he's talking about black urban removal—nothing else. Instructional Resource Center, University of Washington
- During a speech at Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington, USA.
- [T]hey Head Start, Upward Lift, Bootstrap, and Upward Bound us into white society, 'cause they don’t want to face the real problem which is a man is poor for one reason and one reason only: 'cause he does not have money -- period. If you want to get rid of poverty, you give people money -- period.
Attributed
- The first need of a free people is to define their own terms.
- The position of women in SNCC is prone.
- (comment attributed to Carmichael from 1964 in which he jokingly challenged the position of women within the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Feminists within the movement and who heard the comment have attested to its less-than-serious nature. Carmichael was well known as a supporter of women within the movement. He in fact worked under Ruby Doris Smith Robinson while he was chairman of SNCC). "Women in the Movement".
- Made a [bad] joke about the position of women in SNCC as "prone." There was no debate, comment made in the middle of the night, after drinks, as a joke.
- NPR reflection on Carmichael's life (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4508288)
- Capitalism is a stupid system, a backward system.
- Tell all the white folks in Mississippi that all the scared niggers are dead!
- (addressing a crowd alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others during the March Against Fear)