Carmichael Stokely - Stokely: a life

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STOKELY

Peniel Joseph, the preeminent scholar of Black Power studies, has written the definitive biography of Stokely Carmichael, one of the most important figures of the post-World War II era. Exhaustively researched and beautifully written, Josephs nuanced biography reveals the crucial interconnections between militants and moderates, nationalists and integrationists, with Stokely emerging as an essential leader of the civil rights movement.

John Stauffer, author of Giants:

The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln

Stokely: A Life is a magisterial biography of one of the most important figures in the history of the black freedom struggle in America. Peniel Joseph paints a vibrant and sweeping portrait of the times that shaped Stokely Carmichael, and in turn, portrays how Carmichael impacted his age with imaginative social activism and provocative ideas. By tracing Carmichaels ascent through the ranks of black resistance to the front ranks of the struggle for Black Powerthe slogan he immortalizedJoseph wields his poetic pen to tell a riveting story of a generation hungry for affirmation and influence beyond the outlines of nonviolent protest. If Martin was the King of civil disobedience, then Carmichael was the Prince of black revolution, and Stokely is the brilliant chronicle of his complicated and remarkable reign during tempestuous times.

Michael Eric Dyson, author of April 4, 1968:

Martin Luther King, Jr.s Death and How it Changed America

Stokely Carmichael made his name with a two word proclamation: Black Power. In this compelling narrative, Peniel Joseph, the leading historian of the black power movement, reconstructs Stokely Carmichaels influential life from his childhood in Trinidad to his involvement in the Freedom Rides and SNCC to his role in the rise of the Black Panthers to his last days as a radical internationalist in Guinea, grappling with the politics of race and resistance, the promise and limits of black radicalism, and the temptations of celebrity. This book belongs on a short shelf of must-read biographies of the era.

Thomas J. Sugrue, author of Sweet Land of Liberty:

The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North

When Kwame Ture died in 1998, the New York Times obituary identified him as the Rights Leader Who Coined Black Power, effectively reducing the most revolutionary voice in the Civil Rights movement to slogan. Peniel Joseph changes all that with this richly documented political and intellectual biography. Without polemics or apologetics, Joseph brings Tures radical ideas into clear focusfrom his Pan-African socialist vision and his critique of empire to his unwavering commitment to mass-based revolution.

Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk:

The Life and Times of an American Original

Peniel Joseph has delivered a masterwork for generations to come. Without making the rough edges smooth, Joseph captures the essence of why Stokely Carmichael was the voice who aroused a voiceless generation, the wretched of the earth. We who knew the real Stokely in the many phases of his life always loved him, learned from him, laughed at his wisecracks, and were awed by his risk-taking and courage. He opened our dying culture to new possibilities of freedom.

Tom Hayden, Director, Peace and Justice Resource Center

By tracing the life and work of a brilliant and charismatic soldier for racial change, this beautifully realized biography opens windows into the complex and often vexed ideas, strategies, and contributions of Black Power. As a result, we now possess a richer understanding of how leadership and movement insurgency helped remake modern America under conditions of deep racism and wartime violence, and of how American insurgencies came to possess a global imagination.

Ira Katznelson, author of Fear Itself:

The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time

Peniel Joseph has succeeded in bringing Stokely Carmichael back to life. Stokely transports the reader on an insightful and entertaining journey through postwar New York City, the Civil Rights Movement, and the late Cold War years in the United States and Africa. This is the history of a remarkable individual who embodied many of the tumultuous changes occurring around him. The powerful accomplishments and lingering disappointments of racial reform are elucidated in this beautifully written and deeply researched biography. Anyone interested in recent history should read this path-breaking book.

Jeremi Suri, Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global

Affairs, University of Texas at Austin, and author of Libertys Surest Guardian:

American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama

Peniel Joseph long has been acknowledged as our premier interpreter of Black Power. And now with the publication of this magisterial bookthis exceedingly thoughtful and beautifully written studyPeniel Joseph has been catapulted into the front ranks of historians of Black America.

Gerald Horne, John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and

African American Studies, University of Houston

STOKELY

A Life

ALSO BY PENIEL E. JOSEPH

Dark Days, Bright Nights

Waiting Til the Midnight Hour

Copyright 2014 by Peniel E. Joseph

Published by BasicCivitas Books,

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books, 250 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10107.

Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail .

Designed by Pauline Brown

Typeset in 11-point Minion Pro by the Perseus Books Group

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Joseph, Peniel E.

Stokely : a life / Peniel E. Joseph.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-465-08048-9 (epub)

1. Carmichael, Stokely. 2. African American civil rights workersBiography. 3. Civil rights workersUnited StatesBiography. 4. Black powerUnited StatesHistory20th century. 5. African AmericansCivil rightsHistory20th century. 6. Civil rights movementsUnited StatesHistory20th century. 7. United StatesRace relationsHistory20th century. I. Title.

E185.97.C27J63 2014

323.092dc23

[B]

2013032408

For Astrid

Contents

STOKELY CARMICHAEL IS A TROUBLING ICON OF AMERICAS CIVIL RIGHTS years. His Black Power call became a national Rorschach test: whereas many blacks viewed it as righteous, many whites saw violent foreboding. Newspapers brooded over Carmichaels words, quickly forming a consensus that judged the slogan to be at best intemperate and, at worst, a blatant call for anti-white violence and reverse racism. In 1966, Black Power reverberated around the world, galvanizing blacks, outraging whites, and inspiring a cross-section of ethnic and racial minorities. In 1969, Carmichael left the United States for Conakry, Guinea, where he reinvented himself as a roving Pan-Africanist organizer and professional revolutionary. For the next thirty years, he remained an energetic dissident, a throwback to the heady years of the 1960s. Carmichael turned the quest for black political power into his lifes work. His faith in a style of politics many considered anachronistic came out of the same tenacity and stubbornness that once made him the most effective and controversial activist of his generation. These same qualities, however, limited Carmichaels efforts as a Pan-Africanist political mobilizer.