Stokely Carmichael gave a speech at the University of California, Berkley campus in 1966. Carmichael's speech was given on behalf of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. During his speech Carmichael is given credit for coining the phrase "black power". While some organizations and people supported the ideas of the black power movement, others believed it would not help the advancement of African-Americans during the Civil Rights Movement. During his speech Stokely Carmichael lays out key reasoning to why the shift from a peaceful protest movement by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was necessary to achieve the means ending institutionalized racism and attempts to persuade people on why the slow peaceful movement of the Civil Rights movement currently, was not the way to go about change and equality.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was created to uphold the ideas and values of Civil Rights leaders like that of Martin Luther King, Jr. The idea of peaceful protest was strongly adopted by Dr. King. As the Civil Rights Movement progressed, students who were members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee started to become restless with how slow the movement was progressing. In 1966 while giving a speech in Mississippi, Carmichael coined the phrase "black power" (Bates, Stokely Carmichael, A Philosopher Behind the Black Power Movement). Carmichael's opinion on peaceful protest changed, and when it came to Dr. Martin Luther kind, he said a lot was right, but when it came to nonviolence "he only made one fallacious assumption: in order for nonviolence to work, your opponent, has to have a conscience. The United States has no conscience" (Bates, Stokely Carmichael, A Philosopher Behind the Black Power Movement). Carmichael began traveling the country giving speeches to all who would list as to why black power mattered and his movement was necessary. His movement however, was taken differently, by different people, some accepting it and others challenging the cause for it.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, also known as the NAACP, was very prominent during the Civil Rights Movement in making sure that strides were taken to provide African-Americans amongst other races, religions, and backgrounds with equal rights. Following Carmichael's speech prominent members of the NAACP released statements regarding the idea of black power, and taking a stance that it was in fact not a movement they supported when it came to receiving civil rights and equality. The executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Roy Wilkins, made a statement following Stokely Carmichael's speech on July 5, 1966. Wilkins stated "[black power] is reverse Mississippi, a reverse Hitler, a reverse Ku Klux Klan." (Hall 50) This idea given by the executive director of the NAACP suggested that the black power movement was very radical and would not be supported by members of the NAACP. To have such a prominent member of the Civil Rights Movement, telling people that the way to create change and gain the civil rights they wanted was not through the black power movement was important to the push for civil rights, because it made people pick a side. A person had to chose whether or not they wanted to be a part of the peaceful, but slow movement for civil rights, or take the more radical approach of Carmichael's black power movement to obtain equal rights. It created a divide between the members of the Civil Rights Movement, which could have potentially lead to a longer movement, because people were not banded together in how they would approach equality. Another organization that promoted Civil Rights was the National Urban League. The National Urban League, also did not support the ideas of the new and radical black power movement. They believed that the ideas of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. regarding a peaceful protest was the right way to go about challenging civil injustices to received civil rights for African-Americans. (Hall 50).

While some African-American organizations did not think the Black Power movement was going to help progress the Civil Rights movement forward there were organizations that stood behind black power and based their ideas off of Carmichael's movement. The Black Panthers were created in 1966, the same year Stokely Carmichael gave a speech on the importance of using force when necessary to achieve the goal of desegregation. The founders of the Black Panthers were Huey Percy Newton and Bobby Seale. The two created the Black Panthers organization on the West Coast in California to promote the idea of using violence if necessary to achieve their four main goals of: equality in education, housing, employment, and civil rights. (The Black Panthers, TheHistoryLearningSite.com). Carmichael in his speech makes note of one of the main points of the Black Panthers when talking about housing. He related how whites did not want to move to the ghettos of African-American neighborhoods and how without a willingness to move to those different neighborhoods by both groups of people then equality would never be obtained. The Black Panthers believed in equality in every sense and if the willingness to move to a black neighborhood by a white person was not the same as a willingness to move to a white neighborhood by a black person, then it could not be said that everyone was equal and this added to the ideas of institutionalized segregation. The rise of organizations like the Black Panther Party during the 1960s added to the increase of a divide between the ideas of how the Civil Rights Movement should have been approached. Radical organizations like the Black Panther Party questioned, the strides that were supposedly being made, by organizations like the NAACP, and made it harder for people to band together as one during the Civil Rights Movement, because values differed from one organization to the next.

During a time of nonviolent protest, although strides were made and eventually would have achieved desegregation in the end, Carmichael believed that violence when necessary would have sped up the process and made the progress of the Civil Rights Movement move quicker. He believed that the ideas of the Black Panther Party and the black power movement would achieve the ending of institutionalized racism and segregation quicker than the few strides he thought were made by the peaceful protest movement endorsed by the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the NAACP. At the time of his speech although places were starting to desegregate, Carmichael believed desegregation was not the most important issue at hand it was institutionalized racism. So although Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the NAACP were making strides to end segregation, they were not trying hard enough to change institutionalized racism. Carmichael thought the ideas of the Black Panther Party were making a better attempt to put an end to this institutionalized racism, and endorsed the beliefs of the Black Panther Party instead. When trying to understand Stokely Carmichael's speech it is necessary to understand why he is trying to persuade these students at a predominantly white university of The University of California Berkeley to help with his movement. During the speech Carmichael addresses how white organizations stopped supporting the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, because they thought it was becoming too radical. At the University of California Berkley, Carmichael wanted the students that he was addressing to understand why the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee decision to become more radical was not to cause problems but a means needed to reach an end. Stokely Carmichael wanted students to understand what institutionalized racism and segregation were and how they were holding citizens of color back in the United States. He wanted the students he was addressing to start taking action so that a difference could be made and all American citizens could all have equalized opportunities.  Carmichael also utilized the University of California Berkley to relay his speech, because it gave him the opportunity to explain why the movement was necessary to a group of people who may have otherwise not understood the movement, since it was deemed so radical. He wanted the students at The University of California Berkley to feel a sense of why the radical movement was necessary and how it was not this terrible radical movement that it was being portrayed as by some. UCLA-Berkley was a well chosen school to give the speech at, because it allowed Carmichael to address a predominantly white institution, and give insight to people who may have very little understood the cause of his movement a better understanding. Carmichael believed the most important part of the black power movement was to end institutionalized racism quickly. This is important, because it shows that Carmichael's belief of violence as a means when necessary, was due to the fact that he wanted the Civil Rights Movement to progress quicker and he wanted institutionalized racism to end faster so if necessary people needed to get violent to achieve this goal.

Although older African-Americans did not believe that the black power movement was necessary to achieve civil rights, Stokely Carmichael's idea of black power was a force to be reckoned with. Many young African-Americans followed his movement and deemed it necessary to receive the equality they sought after. The Black Power Movement was known world wide, and still to this day is a staple in the Civil Rights Movement. Carmichael's help with the black power movement was necessary to get the word out and create an understanding amongst a wide variety of people in order to increase the strides of the movement and reach the end goal of ridding the United States of America of institutionalized racism and institutionalized segregation. 

