Black Power Speech

2006 Words9 Pages
The term Black Power became popular in the mid 1960’s thanks to black rights activist Stokely Carmichael. Although Stokely Carmichael did not spark the mood for change in the Civil rights movement, nor did he create the term “Black Power,” Carmichael did serve as the charismatic leader to help bring awareness to the struggle that every African American faced at the time. He was a master of expressing the frustrations of a younger generation of civil rights activist that identified to his age, appearance, and ideas. The main idea surrounding Stokely Carmichael’s Black Power Speech was Carmichael’s desire for a revolution. Carmichael no longer strode towards racial integration, but rather focused his desires on separation. His Speech argues that African Americans must engage in a “psychological struggle” for control of their own identity as well as question the value of society as a whole. (Carmichael 16) He used rhetorical ethos, pathos and logos to strengthen his arguments. Originally, Carmichael followed Martin Luther King, Jr.’s path of nonviolence and civil disobedience, but by 1966, Carmichael had begun to question the effectiveness of King's nonviolent strategy. When James Meredith, a demonstrator who led a 220-mile "March Against Fear," was shot trying to prove that white violence was not to be feared, Carmichael came to the realization that King’s nonviolence and civil disobedience strategy was not working. Ironically, Carmichael became the Chairman for Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) just as he began to have doubts about nonviolence as a strategy. As the leader of SNCC, Carmichael began to talk about Black Power rather than nonviolent civil disobedience and transformed the group into a more militant organization. (Stewart 432) The Black Power movement represented a completely different approach toward civil rights activism; the movement
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