The Breakfast Club - IDKMYDE: Stokely Carmichael

Episode Date: February 13, 2024

On this episode of #IDKMYDE, Ever notice how they always teach us about the same historical figures during Black History Month? Well, let's change that! Meet Stokely Carmichael – a controversial yet charismatic civil rights leader who deserves way more recognition.  IG: @_idkmyde_ | @BdahtTV | @blackeffectSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, y'all. Niminie here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Executive produced by Questlove, The Story Pirates, and John Glickman, Historical Records brings history to life through hip-hop. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Listen to Historical Records on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Parks, Martin Luther King. They never teach you about folks like Stokely Carmichael. And she said, who is Stokely Carmichael? I didn't know. Maybe you didn't.

I didn't know. I didn't know. Maybe you didn't. I didn't know. I didn't know. Maybe you didn't. I didn't know. I didn't know.

I didn't know. I didn't know. Stokely Carmichael. He looked like young Dolph mixed with Gerard Carmichael, the very controversial and charismatic young civil rights leader. He pretty much popularized the phrase black power. He wasn't the first to say it, but he did popularize it. He was born in Trinidad in 1941. His family moved to the Bronx when he was young and he went to Howard University. And as a freshman, he was a freedom rider and freedom riders pretty much were black and white activists who signed up to take trips down to the south on the weekends to get their asses beat by racist whites with the optimism of equality and opportunity he graduated from

howard in 1964 and by 1966 at the age of 24 he was the chairman of the snick he replaced john lewis and we all know john lewis again the SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC, the SNCC. That organization was formed in the Deep South again to organize African-American voters. But over time, Stoke got tired of the old head civil rights activists compromising with President Johnson and other white authorities. By the 27th time he was arrested, he said he was done with the nonviolent approach. He told a group of marchers in Greenwood, Mississippi, this is the 27th time I've been arrested and I ain't going to jail no more. The only way we're gonna stop them white men from whipping us is to take over. We've been saying freedom for six years and ain't got nothing. What we're gonna start saying now is black power.

That was a phrase that MLK deemed, and would ask Stokely repeatedly to stop using it. He wouldn't. In 1966 to 67, he did a tour of colleges, giving militant speeches to black minds. Black leather jacket, Afro, swagged out. He left the SNCC in 1967, did a brief stint with the Black Panther Party for self-defense before setting up shop in 1969 in Guinea, West Africa, joining the All African People's Revolutionary Party. When he returned to the States to tour colleges in 1971, black folks that came to hear him scream, kill the pigs, were disappointed as hell. He had changed.

He changed his name to Kwame Ture, and that was to recognize his two primary political mentors. In 1998, Stokely Carmichael, or Kwame Ture, lost his battle to cancer at his home in Africa. So whenever you see or hear the phrase black power, oh, he wasn't the first person to say it. But Stokely Carmichael not only popularized it, but he turned it into a movement. And I didn't know. Maybe you didn't either. I didn't know. Hey, y'all.

Niminy here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Executive produced by Questlove, The Story Pirates, and John Glickman, Historical Records brings history to life through hip-hop. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Listen to Historical Records on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.