Watershed iconic activist of the civil rights and black power era. He is popularizing that term on june 15, 1966 in greenwood, mississippi. And he becomes this icon of the late 1960s. Carmichael is going to be stoically carmichael is going to be the most controversial black activist since malcolm x, he is friends with Martin Luther king jr. Civil rights for the next 30 years he becomes a revolutionary organizer who changes his name in honor of two of his political mentors in africa who were both the first president s of their countrys respectively. He takes the first name and third name. Host what part of the Civil Rights Movement was he involved in . When we think about maclean he is involved in every major action between 1960 and 1965 in the Civil Rights Movement, second half, he is a sit in demonstrator involved in the nonviolent coordinating committee, he is a freedom rider, and arrested for the first time on june 8, 1961, in mississippi, spends weeks in parchment penitentiary, the citys worst prison farm. He is the Howard University student activist, part of this group called the nonviolent action group. He spends time in mississippi every single summer where he is working with sharecroppers, working with young people, working on Voter Registration enduring freedom summer in 1964 he is one of the project directors, but the second Congressional District in the mississippi delta. An extraordinary activist and he marches with Martin Luther king jr. In alabama. The christian Leadership Conference leaves after montgomery. Stokely carmichael and his coworkers going to Lawrence County, alabama, a county really in the black belt of alabama. They work with sharecroppers and start independent the Little People organizing and that is the root of the original black Panther Party cell by 1966, john lewis is now congressman, he is really representing the radical face of the Civil Rights Movement and also this militant radical insurgency that will become known as black power so when we think about carmichael and civil rights he is a key organizer in civil rights but is the only major black power figure who had done that kind of daytoday organizing as a civil rights activist. Host what was the relationship . They have a good relationship. He needs john lewis in 1961 at a restaurant where john lewis is one of the people on the freedom ride in may of 1969, theyre going to go into alabama. There are a couple buses, a greyhound bus, trailway is bus, lewis is going to be added dinner, stoically is going to meet him at that dinner and some of those activists who are going to be on the buses i call it the last supper because there are 12 of them not counting james farmer of course, they are feeling like their lives are in potential danger. Their lives were in danger. Airbuses are going to be violently attacked in alabama. Stoically eventually is going to join the crusade by june but they are friends. John lewis when he meets Stokely Carmichael spending time with him in jail they are both in mississippi jails, he likes and on the spot instantly. Theyre going to become adversaries by 1966 because Stokely Carmichael will run for chairmanship of snake. John lewis is a very courageous activist, he is a heroic figure but certainly he wanted to continue to be chairman of snake. Once he is replaced error is bad feeling. Host was it because of the nonviolence of john lewis . Not because of the nonviolence. What is going on with Stokely Carmichael replacing john lewis, Stokely Carmichael was a day today organizer within the nonviolent coordinating committee. John lewis was chairman but by 196566 john lewis is going to white house conferences, really a figure who is not necessarily in touch with the day today activity the same way someone mike Stokely Carmichael is. Snick is becoming more radicalized because what they experienced on the ground. Stokely carmichael famously said in the south snick experience brought terror, he means not only Police Brutality and brutality from local vigilantes but the fact that the federal government and a lot of ways was not proactive in defending civil rights workers in the struggle for liberation, freedom and democracy as they should have been. Atlantic city in 1964 is a turning point because snick activists and local mississippi activist for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and famously a sharecropper from mississippi is one of the leading activists and organizers of this Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. They try to organize an integrated delegation to be seated at a Democratic National convention in Atlantic City in august of 1964 and they think if they played by the rules the Democratic Party will allow them to be seated. Very famously Lyndon Johnson sent a different surrogates, famously people like Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale to say they will not be seated because Lyndon Johnson doesnt want mississippi regulars who are all white where segregation to walk out of the convention, cause a scene and cost all the southern delegates to walk out of the convention. What happens is true democracy is lost at the Democratic National convention and the irony is not lost on people like not only Stokely Carmichael but bob moses, sandy lew hayman, activists who were organizing in the south, doing the right thing, they were organizing for citizenship and democracy and those democratic stirrings get trounced by, ironically, the Democratic Party, the president of the United States. That turning point further radicalizes snick and especially Stokely Carmichael whos starts to argue there is no way to get political power except independently and autonomously. The Democrat Party is not going to be a vehicle for black political power. Some people disagreed with Stokely Carmichael. For Stokely Carmichael and snick, we are going to see a push for independence black political organizing and eventually black power. Host did Stokely Carmichael have a relationship with Lyndon Johnson . Guest no, they never meet that certainly they talk about one another extensively and they are aware that the other exists. What is interesting is Lyndon Johnson privately talks about Stokely Carmichael, different interviews where people say they heard him speak about Stokely Carmichael. He is critical that 18 and certainly Stokely Carmichael is accused antiwar activist. One of the most interesting things about his life is when we look at the 1960s he is a major anti vietnam war activist and vociferously speaking out against the war even before dr. King comes out against the war. Carmichaels antiwar activism is going to be inspirational to dr. King and that is something they even talk about. Host in april of 1998, cspan interview it kwame ture a few months before he died and he talked about the fbi. Since his use and on the record that the fbi may have given you this cancer. Im certain they did. The fbi is well advanced in germ and Chemical Warfare, extremely it fenced and no questions that after the assassination of Martin Luther king they themselves claimed in their intelligence magazines they had to change the method of eliminating what they considered to be leaders and of course germ and Chemical Warfare is one of the best ways to do it. Any number of ways. We say jokingly that if in the 1600s indians could get smallpox by osmosis they could give us cancer with laser beams. Of course germ and Chemical Warfare. Is the fbi watching now all the time . Host did the fbi watch Stokely Carmichael . Guest absolutely. They had a Counterintelligence Program that had initially been started in 1950s and to really watch the verses, it was anticommunist. It quickly becomes something that is used to provide surveillance over civil rights activists, prodemocracy activists, black power revolutionaries, antiwar activists. Carmichael has an extensive fbi file. Stokely carmichael, kwame ture, state department, United States intelligence services, fbi is watching him all the time, especially after the black power speech of june of 1966. He writes in his own autobiography how federal agents are harassing him, cars that are constantly behind him, it is something that takes its toll and he is definitely going to be an pecans and surveillance. The white house requests twice weekly briefings on Stokely Carmichael, that is directly from Lyndon Johnson and his special assistant. Marvin watson. The surveillance on Stokely Carmichael is very extensive. By the time he travels overseas in 1967 very famously takes a five month world tour and travels to cuba, london, vietnam, even algeria, tanzania and guinea, west africa where he meets up with kwame ture. He is being followed throughout. Is a difficult process for him. Once he becomes this National Political leader in this International Icon and figure he is definitely under surveillance. So his first wife was a South African singer. Host in your 2010 book dark days, bright nights from black power to barack obama, you write that black power did not suddenly appear in northern cities after 1965 as an alternative to civil rights activists. Instead it existed alongside its most celebrated setting base counterparts. Mutual antagonism cut off black radicals from white allies and traditional civil rights leaders. On occasion both camps did foreign powerful with provisional alliances. That is true. When you think about black power and civil rights one of the interesting parts of studying postwar American History is this idea that civil rights is now in 2014 become nationally commemorated. While civil rights was unfolding especially the heroic periods between 6465 this was a hotly contested, hotly debated controversial movement. Americans did not universally even when you look at Public Opinion polls think that civil rights was a good thing. People the majority of what americans felt the movement was moving too fast. 50 years later we really have embraced that movement. Black power has not undergone the same rehabilitation. Black power is considered the evil twin of the Civil Rights Movement, the movement that wrecked a more positive movement for social justice. And urban black militants. Urban black Stokely Carmichael, violent anti white attitudes. And watch how would unfolded, we see something different. These are africanamerican activists, sometimes not just africanamerican activists but black activists, some from the caribbean and some dramatic as well. They were trying to have radical political transformation. They argued civil rights reform was not enough but they had a relationship with civil rights activists. Sometimes they straddle both camps of civil rights and black power. What was the black Power Movement . It was a call for radical social, economic selfdetermination. It was a call for black people to define their own gold strategies and tactics, how they defined identity, how they define citizenship, also how they were going to define liberation and freedom. When we think of civil rights and black power, even though Stokely Carmichael popularizes the term in 1966 the movement predates and 18. There were other people who used that phrase before but malcolm x, the avatar of that movement. We think of malcolm in the 1950s and the northern activists in new york, detroit, chicago, oakland, los angeles, st. Louis, they are fighting to try to transform existing institutions, the vote is part of it but it goes beyond that. They are fighting for Public Schools, the end of Police Brutality, fighting for jobs, they are doing all these movements for social political transformation but also very intimately there is an intimate understanding that anti colonial struggles happening in africa in the third world, between 19571962 there will be 25 different african nation states that achieve independence sometimes violently and sometimes peacefully. They are connecting those struggles with struggle against jim crow and racial segregation. The black Power Movement is connected with the black freedom struggle that is going on in postwar america. It is not something that just comes into play and it will have many different facets. Certainly the main thrust is going to be radical but there will be revolutionaries, some who are black nationalists, some who are marxist but there will be black power feminists, there will be some who are liberal and some who are interested in electing more officials, more politicians. Sometimes you have a connection between radicals and liberals to try to get things like black mayors elected and black congressman elected in the 60s and 70s. What is interesting is how multifaceted and panoramic is. It really goes from welfare rights activists, black nationalists who are Street Corner activists, sharecroppers in Lawrence County who are part of the black Panther Party, the black Panther Party for selfdefense in oakland and people like bobby seale, kathleen cleaver, Stokely Carmichael at the National Level but you have things like student strikes and sit ins from Howard University in d. C. San Francisco City college, creating a black student unions and this movement for black studies so it is some multiple multifaceted movement, where ultimately it is a movement that is trying to redefine what politics means in the United States and redefine not just american democracy but American Society in the United States and things like citizenship and freedom, of liberation, mean. Host in your first book, til the midnight hour a narrative history of black power in america, you talk about the importance of the afro asian conference in 1955 . Guest this was a conference that talked about a third world solidarity, nonaligned movement, representatives from 29 different nations with a population of over a billion people getting together under indonesian president and making the argument they want to be outside the sphere of influence from western capitalism or sovietstyle socialism but what is interesting is band tuned is going to impress upon people like malcolm x, what we need in the United States is this kind of united front of all politically oppressed peoples, not just africanamericans but people who are oppressed, people of color. When you think of the afroasian conference we will see real reverberations in the black Power Movement and in the 1960s and 70s in terms of social movements arguing there have to be these alliances that are across race. Host how much in fighting was there . There is definitely a lot of disagreement and debate. When we think of civil rights, black power, the things that people could agree on were big and broad like we need to defeat segregation, we need to end Police Brutality, we need Economic Justice for all people in the United States but especially poor black people who are not getting their fair share. There were huge differences in how those things would be achieved. The different ideological debate that are happening, different strategic debates that bold these things down versus selfdefense and integration versus separation or racial separatism, it is more complex than that on what kind of society is america. You think about civil rights activists, there is a perspective that america was a society that could be reformed, transformed. If you got the right legislation, if you got the right chord or judicial victory, that is when we th