Existing comment:
Stokely Carmichael, 1941-1998
H. Rap Brown, born 1943
Frustrated by what they regarded as slow progress in the struggle for equality and angered by the repressive tactics employed by civil rights opponents, Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown emerged in the mid-1960s as leaders of an increasingly militant faction of activists who called for black autonomy rather than integration. Carmichael's experiences as a Freedom Rider in the 1961 campaign to desegregate interstate transportation in the South and his subsequent work as a field organizer with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) fueled his decision to abandon the long- favored tactic of passive resistance.
Adopting "Black Power" as a rallying cry, Carmichael broke with SNCC and accepted a lead- ership role with the separatist Black Panther Party. SNCC veteran H. Rap Brown, whose claim that "violence is as American as cherry pie" signaled a radical schism within the civil rights movement, soon joined him.
James E. Hinton, Jr., 1968 (printed 2001) |