Synopsis

This book is a historical account of the lives of several black leaders and people of notice around the world.

EXCERPT

Stokey Carmichael (Kwame Toure)

 



One of the most radical of the civil rights leaders, Carmichael sought to unify
blacks under a more militant agenda, advocating revolution if necessary. His
views ultimately led him into the Pan-African movement; he changed his name to
Kwame Toure and became an international spokesman for the All-African People's
Revolutionary Party. 



A native of the British West Indies, Carmichael moved to New York City's Harlem
in 1952 and was educated at the elite--and at the time, mostly white--Bronx High
School of Science. It was during his high school years that he became aware of
the civil rights movement and the thwarted aspirations of many African
Americans. In 1960 he entered Howard University in Washington, D.C. and began
participating in the Freedom Rides sponsored by the Congress for Racial Equality
(CORE). In 1964 he joined what was then the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC), where he gained influence as the leader of a task force sent
to increase black voter registration in Lowndes County, Mississippi. The task
force helped raise the number of registered black voters in the predominantly
black county to a number that surpassed the white populace. Carmichael later
helped organize the Lowndes County Freedom organization, an all-black political
party that adopted the panther as its symbol.