
Stokely Carmichael’s “Black Power” is an empowering speech that captured the attention of all no matter what race when it was given in 1966 at Berkley, California which is a heavily white city. The speech went against everything that was normal at the time and even challenged the intelligence of the whites. This speech was given in a time of high racial tension and shows how strong and tough Carmichael was to be brave enough to do this when he knew he could be sent to prison or even worse. Stokely Carmichael delivers this speech to address the problems facing our society at the time and shows the strength to grasp every one’s attention while doing so in a heavily white area. When we look at the heavily racist society that we lived in during the 1960s and 1970s that created a major cultural divide we can understand why Carmichael calls for equality. He does this because he wanted to prove that blacks and whites shared more similarities than differences and that blacks could do anything whites could do. It is whites that need to learn that blacks are perfectly capable of all things they are capable of. 

The Civil Rights movement lasted mainly from the early 1960s into the 1970s. During this time there was much social conflict and many great leaders of the movement to help keep it strong. However, there was still much oppression that African-Americans faced that needed to be stopped. Segregation was at its peak in this time period as blacks were seen as inferior to whites in almost every aspect. There were segregated restaurants, bathrooms, and even water fountains. Blacks were not allowed to move into white neighborhoods and even when they were allowed, it was not acceptable and there was often conflict involved. (Wiese) People would shoot at their houses as well as protest and throw bricks through the windows. Internationally, the United States had brought its oppression to Africa and to Asia where they believe they were there to help but in reality they just wanted to increase their influence to foreign land. (Carmichael) The inequality and hatred that African-Americans faced was not acceptable. Leaders of the Civil Rights movement like Stokely Carmichael shined the light and opened the door to the path for racial equality because they showed the whites that they were just as good as them and able to do anything that they could do through their actions, words and beliefs. This era in our history was a very tense, but very important one to help shape the landscape of our country and pave the way to equality.

Stokely Carmichael’s “Black Power” is a speech given to emphasize the amount of oppression African Americans faced in the 60’s and 70’s and to call out whites and challenge them to accept change. In some cases, people of white race took charge and responsibility. Christine Acham says in her review of “Black, White, and in Color: Television and Black Civil Rights” by Sasha Torres: “Television's news coverage of civil rights served all purposes and became the first major story of the televised news media.” (Acham) The media saw the Civil Rights movement as not only the right thing for society to move on and desegregate, they also saw it as a chance to improve ratings by showing the harsh things done to African Americans on television. This allowed people to see what was actually going on in the world right in front of their eyes which justified what figures like Stokely Carmichael preached. Carmichael argues that it “seems to me that the institutions that function in this country are clearly racist, and that they're built upon racism.” This was clearly true at the time but the media deciding to start showing people what was happening to African Americans was one of the first instances of an institution of power in our country breaking through to advance the movement of African Americans in this country. 

Another idea of the time period in the 60’s and 70’s was that because African Americans didn’t have the same rights as whites was due to the fact that they didn’t have the same freedom as whites. In “Black Power”, Carmichael explains “No man can give anybody his freedom. A man is born free. You may enslave a man after he is born free, and that is in fact what this country does.” Whites in our country as a whole had the belief that they were a superior race. The institutions of the United States engraved that into the minds of blacks and whites. Many blacks were too afraid to speak up for their beliefs because they knew what would happen if they did. If people like Carmichael and Martin Luther King Jr. had never been advocates for the Civil Rights Movement, then we may still be living the way of the 1960’s and 1970’s where African Americans and whites couldn’t even live in the same neighborhoods because the whites felt they were superior. “It is abundantly clear that laws, bureaucratic structures, expressions of political and economic power, and the historical and spatial legacies of earlier racism shaped subsequent thought and behavior among both whites and African Americans.” (Wiese) This quote from a review of “As Long as They Don’t Move Next Door” explains the fact that racism is not something that is embedded into a person at birth. Racism is taught and developed to people over time by seeing the words and actions of what others do. Carmichael’s speech is an example of trying to teach people something other than what they had been taught and make them aware that blacks are born just as free as whites. It is what the white people that are a part of the institutions do to African Americans and teach other whites what to think that shapes the oppression. 

The oppression doesn’t stop within the borders of the United States. The United States and its institutions have gone into foreign lands like Africa and Asia (specifically Vietnam) and tried to preach democracy when in reality we can’t even achieve that feat in our own country. The U.S. has tried to spread its influence into the likes of Vietnam, Philippines, Puerto Rico, and many more while failing to realize that they treat these people as inferiors even though it is them who is too immature to work with them. The first missionaries in Africa forced the Africans to put on more clothes because it “excited” them so they couldn’t handle it. (Carmichael) The institutions inside the United States feel as if they are helping people outside of the country but in reality they are just forcing them to do things the way of the white man. The U.S. also often times was always looking for something in return. “Now when the missionaries came to civilize us because we were uncivilized, educate us because we were uneducated, and give us some literate studies because we were illiterate, they charged a price. The missionaries came with the Bible, and we had the land.” (Carmichael) This statement exemplifies how the United States’ spread of democracy was actually just a way to acquire land and spread their influence into other lands to increase their power. Over time the United States has spread its influence outside of the country to spread democracy. Stokely Carmichael argues that this spread of influence is wrong because of the broken democracy that was occurring within the borders of the U.S. as well as what the missionaries do to the subjects of their conquest. 

Stokely Carmichael’s “Black Power” is a brilliant speech given to emphasize the wrongdoings of the white institutions in America during the 1960’s and 1970’s. His speech confirms what we already knew about the Civil Rights era but gives a different perspective by telling us that the blacks already knew what they were capable of. The new laws giving African Americans more rights were not to tell them what they could now do. It was to tell the whites of the institutions that they could not restrict them of these rights anymore. Carmichael’s speech emphasizes problems and criticisms in our still in our society today. Even though African Americans share the same rights as whites now, there is still a divide and thought of inferiority on the blacks by the whites. There are is a cultural and socioeconomic divide in our country due to race that must be mended. Stokely Carmichael’s words were relevant during the Civil Rights Movement and are still relevant today as he points out the wrongdoings and the ignorant mindset of the white institutions that have plagued our country from the Revolution to today. 

