(1941 - 1998) Whittier College, Whittier, California - March 22,
1971 Stokely Carmichael was the controversial and charismatic
young civil rights leader who, in 1966, popularized the phrase
"black power." Carmichael was a leading force in the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), working in the Deep
South to organize African American voters. In the process he was
beaten by white racists and frequently jailed. In time,
Carmichael grew disillusioned about the prospects for social
change through nonviolent protest, interracial alliances and
civil rights legislation. He wasn't the first civil rights
figure to proclaim the need for black power, but Carmichael
became one of the most prominent exponents of the term.
Carmichael was born in Trinidad in 1941. His family moved to New
York when he was a boy, settling in a relatively prosperous
section of the Bronx. Carmichael was a bright student, attending
a selective public high school. He attended Howard University in
Washington, D.C., and got involved in