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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We'll do a little history now with our friend Peniel Joseph, Tufts University history professor, who, some of you know, has been doing a 50-year history series with us on the March on Washington's 50th anniversary, the JFK assassination, the LBJ war on poverty speech. Those are the ones that he's done here so far, and more to come later this year and next. Today, Peniel is here with his new book that explores the complicated life and legacy of the activist, Stokely Carmichael, the man who popularized the term Black Power back in 1966 and made the Black Panther Party a household name. The book is called Stokely: A Life. Peniel Joseph, welcome back to WNYC.

Peniel Joseph: Thanks for having me, Brian.

Brian: I want to begin with a clip of Stokely Carmichael, because this is radio and we can, talking about why the term Black Power, as opposed to civil rights, which was the more common way to frame the struggle at the time. This is about a minute long, from the 1971 interview on the BBC.

Stokely Carmichael: It wasn't a question of morality. It wasn't a question of being good at that. It was simply a question of power, and the way Black people had no power, we have to have some power. On the type of power, we can have is Black Power. Black Power. Why do you think these ordinary people, sharecroppers and the like, did respond so quickly to the suggestion of Black Power? When were their problems, we lived with them, we slept on their floors, we picked cotton with them. My job was to organize them.

We knew that they knew that they were powerless. They just couldn't find a way to articulate it, but we knew that they knew they were powerless. We knew once they knew the question was power. Once they were able to see and understand and grasp the concept of power, they would of course respond, and they did. They did immediately. Not only them, but people all over the world.

Brian: Stokely Carmichael on the Beeb in 1971, Peniel Joseph, author of Stokely: A Life with us live. What was he getting out of that cut?

Peniel: I think he's trying to sort of disentangle the definition of Black Power. When he says that phrase in 1966, people sometimes think he was talking about reverse racism. He's talking about violence, he's somehow anti-white. Stokely had been an organizer for his whole life. He was good friends with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Before he was a Black Power revolutionary, he was a day-to-day civil rights organizer in Mississippi, in Lowndes County, Alabama. He went to Howard University. He's from Port of Spain, Trinidad, but he's a New York City boy.

Brian: Went to Bronx Science.

Peniel: Went to Bronx Science. Stokely always was about organizing and trying to transform radically, whatever environment he was in. His notion of Black Power, initially, is about redefining American democracy and American citizenship. Now, it's going to evolve into really revolution, revolutionary anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, anti-capitalism. He's going to leave the United States. He's going to be called Kwame Ture, which is a name that he takes after the presidents of Ghana and Guinea, respectively, Kwame Nkrumah, the famous pan-Africanist, and Sékou Touré, the president of Guinea.

Brian: I want to go right on to another clip, because this one is pretty in your face, and that he explains why he helped form the Black Panther Party, and in doing so, he explicitly defends violence as something that they might use. This is from an interview on KPIX-TV in California in 1967.

Stokely: This is the first time in the country that Negros will be organized for their own political interest. They will form their own body and move along those interests as they see fit. It is unlike Negros across the country who are registered in the Democratic Party but are not organized for their own interest.

Interviewer: Now, what I don't understand is this, you are also a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. At the same time, you are organizing a group in the south, which almost certainly will tend to contribute to violence or at least counter-violence.

Stokely: They won't contribute to violence, they will just be seeking their political rights, and that they will have to defend those rights. Now, they will defend it the way the country defends its own rights, the way we defended in Vietnam. The way we defended it in World War II, the way we defended in World War I, the way they were going to defend it in the Dominican Republic, I imagine, they will defend it the same way, violently.

Brian: They will defend it the same way, violently.

Peniel: He becomes this big advocate for self-defense and also armed rebellion. One thing to put in context is that he starts out as a militant nonviolent civil rights activist, but for him non-violence is tactical. He's arrested, he's beaten, he's brutalized. At 19 he's arrested in Mississippi as a freedom writer. On the evening of the Black Power speech, it's his 27th arrest, and he says he's not going to take it anymore, and for him, Black Power means self-defense.

As he travels overseas, he goes to Cuba, Puerto Rico, London, Africa, and he meets with all these dignitaries, including Fidel Castro. He scandalizes the United States, becomes this revolutionary icon. He meets with actual revolutionaries who are winning in places like Conakry, Guinea. He meets up with people who are part of revolutionary movements all over Africa. He starts to believe that there needs to be political revolution and armed rebellion. At the urban race riots that we're seeing civil disorders are-

Brian: In mid-'60s, late '60s in the United States.

Peniel: -in the United States are actually a prelude to a political revolution. You remember, in the 1960s, this all seemed real. In 1968, there was a global revolution all across the country, and all around the world. We think about the Prague Spring, we think about the Tet Offensive, we think about Detroit, and Newark in '67. After King, the post-riots after King, post-King assassination. What he was talking about, we might think 48 years later, what was this person talking about, but within the context of the time, he was right on the money.

Brian: Do you think he actually committed acts of violence or did actually provoke others to participate in the urban riots?

Peniel: No, I don't think he provoked them. I think what he did is, become a clarion call of why the violence was happening. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the violence of riots the language of the unheard, he said rioting was the language of those who were unheard. Stokely Carmichael gives voice to the voiceless, and he really scandalizes and transforms the aesthetics of the Black freedom struggle by injecting Black Power in there.

Brian: My guest is Peniel Joseph, historian from Tufts University, his new book is called Stokely: A Life. Anybody listening who knew Stokely Carmichael when he was growing up in the East Bronx or in any other context, or who just wants to contribute to the conversation as we revisit the legacy of this radical activist from primarily 1960s and '70s, who lived until 1998? 212-433, WNYC, 212-433-9692, or post at wnyc.org. Click on Brian Lehrer Show, and let's take a call. Ralph in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Ralph: Hi. Yes, I did go to science with Stokely, I was a year behind him. I was wondering if your guests actually spoke to Gene Dennis while he was doing the book.

Brian: Who is that, why that person?

Ralph: Stokely- They were very good friends. Gene Dennis was the son of Eugene Denis, the head of the American Communist Party, and in Stokely's biography, which is something that I really didn't understand while I was going to school with him, he claims that meeting Gene and his father and hanging out with that whole crowd around the ACP at the time, led to some of his early political education.

Two questions that I had was, number one, was there any evidence that they maintained their friendship after Stokely became a Black Power advocate? I would assume they did, but I don't know. The second thing, I always wondered why Stokely was never red-baited for that friendship that he had? Because it must have been fairly public, but maybe not.

Peniel: I didn't speak to Gene Dennis, but certainly, he was influential on Stokely Carmichael's political development and political activism. Stokely joins left-wing study groups and reading groups. he participates in pro-Israel marches in the 1950s. He's also radicalized by what's going on in Harlem, listening to Harlem speakers talking about Africa and African revolution. He says in his autobiography, he was mini red-baited while he had that relationship with Gene, that friendship with Gene in the 1950s. I think, by the 1960s, the landscape has changed.

Certainly, some people are saying Carmichael is a communist or subversive, but the landscape has changed. I'm not sure if they kept up that friendship, but certainly Stokely Carmichael, and even as Kwame Ture, keeps up friendships and relationships with white activists who had been in the civil rights movement with, and that's one of the biggest misunderstandings of Stokely Carmichael.

One of the people who dies, which really impacts him, is actually not even African-American, Jonathan Daniels. It is an organizer who dies in Lowndes County, Alabama who's murdered, and that death really hits Stokely Carmichael heart. Even after the Black Power period, and during that period, he is very intimately involved in terms of personal relationships with whites.

Brian: Ralph, thank you for your call. Gary in Queens, you're on WNYC with Peniel Joseph. Hi, Gary.

Gary: Hi there. Some might see parallels with the radical right activist who cite First Amendment rights to self-defense. I have some questions, was Stokely aware that- did he explain how and when he would use violence or use the courts as relief? Also, did he see any contradiction in seeking out authoritarian regimes for guidance and support? Was that a contradiction in any way?

Brian: Those are three great questions. Can we do The Second Amendment one first? Because this actually came up on the show recently when we were discussing the push for new gun control after Newtown, Connecticut. Somebody was recalling that, in the 1960s, Ronald Reagan, as governor of California, was for gun control, largely as a reaction to the rise of the Black Panthers-

Peniel: Black Panthers, absolutely.

Brian: -who they saw as a threat for saying, "It's our Second Amendment rights that are going to protect us from racist America."

Peniel: Yes. Stokely Carmichael-- It's really the Black Panthers that definitely talk about Second Amendment. He talks about self-defense. The way in which he says, "Initially, any kind of violence will be used," is self-defense of civil rights workers and Black Power workers.

Brian: Like if the cops are using aggressive violence against you.

Peniel: Absolutely, or just local vigilantes. By the late '60s, he starts to talk about armed rebellion and armed insurgency, both in Africa and The Third World and in the United States. That's an advocacy, revolutionary guerrilla warfare, revolutionary anti-imperialism. In terms of the contradictions, yes, there were contradictions, but from the perspective of Stokely Carmichael, Kwame Ture, whatever contradictions that certain of these African autocrats or these other autocrats have, the very fact that they're very critical of American imperialism, the very fact that they're critical of American capitalism.

I remember, this is a very interesting time period, because, for instance, Nelson Mandela is in jail, and the United States has a cordial relationship with South Africa. Different countries have cordial relationships with South Africa. That's enough to have somebody like Stokely Carmichael say, "Anybody who's speaking truth to power against anything like apartheid and against this kind of racism and colonialism, I'm going to side with them, even if there are contradictions locally in terms of their own indigenous population."

Certainly, those contradictions, I agree with you that they exist. I have a critique of that in this biography. It's a critical biography and it looks at both his successes, victories, but also the shortcomings and the errors, too.

Brian: When he changed his name to Kwame Ture and moved to Africa, did he take on any of that local democracy, local government violence issue?

Peniel: What he does in Guinea, Guinea is ruled by a one-party state, and when he's under the mentorship of Sékou Touré and Kwame Nkrumah, Kwame Nkrumah dies in 1972, what he doesn't do is speak out against the creeping authoritarianism of that regime, where certain people who he had been even close to within the Guinean government fall out of favor and are imprisoned, for example. He doesn't speak out against that.

He's organizing the All African People's Revolutionary Party. He's organizing for revolution, but certainly, there are contradictions in terms of Guinea with what's going on, in terms of people who are opposing the government.

Brian: Why did he leave the United States after becoming such a prominent force here? I think they refer to him as the- what was it? Honorary Prime Minister of the Black Panther Party?

Peniel: Yes. He was really more than that. He helped shape the founding of that group in a lot of different ways in different chapters. There's a push-pull factor. He's going to be harassed and surveilled by the FBI, CIA, State Department, United States Information Services. We can't overestimate the toll, psychologically, and the stress that that takes.

There are assassination threats. There are death threats. The FBI tries to snitch-jacket Stokely. By snitch-jacket I mean, set up and propagate false rumors that he is a CIA agent, he's working for the federal government, he's making millions of dollars and using this stuff to fly around the world. All of which was untrue, but they spread those rumors to revolutionaries and activists with the hopes that there might be some blowback or anti-Carmichael violence.

On one level, he's leaving because of that, but he's also being drawn to Africa. He really believes in this idea of a Pan-African revolution. He marries the international singer and superstar, the beautiful-

Brian: Miriam Makeba.

Peniel: -Miriam Makeba. I know all the listeners know who that is. He listens to her as a teenager. He marries her. He wants to start a whole new life. He was always impressed by Kwame Nkrumah, who by that point in 1967, '68, when Stokely leaves, had been deposed from Ghana and was living in Guinea as co-president with Sékou Touré. He gets access to two of the leading minds and figures of Pan-Africanism.

Brian: Peniel Joseph, author of Stokely: A Life. Mira in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hello, Mira.

Mira: Hi. Fascinating program. I was a classmate of Stokely's at Bronx Science. I'm actually looking at our yearbook right now. One of the things he writes under his name is that he was captain of the soccer team. I and another female friend of mine were the managers of the boys soccer team. I got to know him, and of course, he was a very popular kid. He and Gene Dennis and a whole group of kids that we will hang out together with. I've always followed his career and thought that he would have a fascinating one.

Brian: Thank you very much for that story.

Peniel: Yes. I think what's interesting is, people look at Stokely Carmichael as the fiery Black Power prophet, but he was enormously charismatic, enormously intelligent. He's really popular, charismatic, and intellectual. By 1966, '67, he really becomes the leading Black radical figure both in the United States and the world, and that charisma really shines through. He's an intellectual, but he's enormously charismatic. He makes friends across ideological, political, racial, ethnic lines.

Brian: Part of your research for this book was to look at 20,000 pages of Stokely Carmichael's FBI files. That's a lot of file cabinets worth of FBI files in the days before digital storage. What did you find in there?

Peniel: Found a lot of great, great information and the way in which the FBI was surveilling his every move. The FBI and the White House and the State Department, initially after the Black Power speech, they look to see if he's an American citizen, to see if they can deport him. Because of his anti-war activism, they're trying to charge him with sedition and treason. Ramsey Clark, the Attorney General, Nicholas Katzenbach, who goes from Attorney General to Under Secretary of State, all these folks are issuing deep reports.

J, Edgar Hoover, Lyndon Johnson, the President of the United States wants twice-weekly reports on his activities. He causes a huge [unintelligible 00:17:38]. This is not just the idea that he's being surveilled and under-watched by the United States. This is not something that was a figment of his imagination. It's a great resource to see the way in which there was this illegal activity against this person, but to also see what the breadth of his achievements are.

Brian: Last thing, your final chapter is called The Revolution Is Not About Dying: It's About Living," which is a quote, right?

Peniel: Absolutely.

Brian: Did he come to regret his earlier talk about violence?

Peniel: No, he never came to regret that, but he became much more mature and much more pragmatic in a certain way, not wanting to live fast and die young, and an understanding that revolution and the civil rights activity and the Black Power activity and political struggle that he had been a part of was not going to be a 100-yard dash. It was a long-distance race. It was a marathon. One of his quotes is that he's ready for revolution, which was the slogan of the Guinean revolution. He would answer the phone, "Ready for Revolution." He remained indefatigable, even when Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, the world changed, but Kwame Ture did not change. He remained principled in his belief that political revolutions could succeed.

Brian: Tufts University History Professor, Peniel Joseph. His new book Stokely: A Life. Great, thanks.

Peniel: Thank you for having me.

Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Up next, I've been telling you this morning that we've been collecting pictures today of those honorary street name signs around New York City. You can still snap a pic and tweet it to us @BrianLehrer. After the break, we'll talk about them on the air. Do you know the story of the person who your block is named after? Stay with us.

 

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