People often do not realize what it is that shapes their lives and molds them into the person they grow up to be. It is not one specific thing but rather a collection of events, conversations, and observations that a person may experience throughout their entire life. It is impossible to pinpoint something that shapes someone’s view on the world as a whole with the exception being a traumatic experience or something of that nature that leaves an exceptionally horrible taste in the mouth of the individual. People during the fight for civil rights for African-Americans went through oppression their entire lives leading up to their protests. Someone like Stokely Carmichael endured this oppression his entire life. Carmichael watched everything that went on around him and started to develop his own perception on the world and eventually led him to voice his opinion on the issues at hand on a national scale. There was not one thing in particular that shaped him into an activist. It was his whole life. 

Stokely Carmichael emerged as one of the most influential civil rights activists in history as outlined in the “Stokely Carmichael Biography” written by The Editors of Bio.com. The piece analyzes his life from early on and goes through his entire life. It emphasizes each individual event that led him to rise up against the oppression of African-Americans and join the civil rights movement. Although the piece covers his entire life, it is evident that the primary focus of the article was to show the alternate path he took to Martin Luther King Junior’s approach. MLK took the peaceful passage in order to protest inequality within the nation. His plan was slow developing and was set to be a long yet effective process that would eventually grant African-American people civil rights. Carmichael became tired of the peaceful protests and was not satisfied with the level of change as well as the pace of the movement. He decided to take a more aggressive route with the movement. He had great respect for Martin Luther King Junior but felt that a more active approach was needed. After James Meredith was shot during his “Walk Against Fear”, Carmichael became angry and decided that his walk should be completed. After completing the walk Carmichael gave an address in which he created the slogan “Black Power”. This quickly sparked a fire throughout the nation among the black community. This marked the shift to a more aggressive approach that moved away from the emphasis on no violence.

Stokely Carmichael put years worth of thought into ways to push for equality for African-Americans. The piece provided by Bio.com allows the reader to see everything that led up to his approach for civil rights. In his speech he covers every issue that he believes is present in American society. Carmichael had been watching what was going on in the nation ever since he was a little boy and was excited to jump right in as soon as he became old enough to make an impact. He saw what MLK did and decided that he needed to make his own changes to achieve their common goal. In his speech he emphasizes that civil rights is not a problem of the African-American community but that it is solely a problem with the whites. He states that they “must dismiss the fallacious notion that white people can give anybody their freedom. No man can give anybody his freedom. A man is born free” (Carmichael 314). Carmichael knew which rights he was born with and knew that he still had maintained those rights but viewed the whites’ denial of those rights as a temporary barrier. Carmichael recognized the struggles in the early going and began to develop his plan over a number of years. Although there was no specific “plan”, his knowledge and understanding of how people operated allowed him to successfully push for change. Stokely Carmichael saw that they could no longer continue on with this fight without a weapon. The African-Americans were essentially “bringing a knife into a gun fight”. The biographical information provided in the piece on Bio.com pieces together the snippets of Carmichael’s life to show the progression of his thoughts and actions towards gaining civil rights for his people. 

The entire purpose of Carmichael leading the Black Revolution is explained throughout his testimony. Once again throughout his whole life he has developed views based on what has gone on around him. Although this time he explains that it is not only to end the oppression within the United States but to end oppression as a whole for these groups of people in other countries as well. He states that “we see that our freedom, our liberation depends on [other countries] and vise versa, their liberation depends on us, so we must wage the same struggle” (Testimony). Carmichael feels an obligation to protect other countries as well and to join them in the fight. His whole life he has observed other countries go through some of the same issues and decided that they need to support each other. One solution Carmichael has to this issue is to take down the capitalist system that once existed. “We want to economically destroy capitalism because capitalism goes hand in hand with racism and exploitation…so we must destroy the capitalist system which enslaves us on the inside and the people of the third world on the outside” (Testimony). He views the system as an issue to obtaining freedom and ending the oppression of African-Americans and proposes to destroy it. He does all of this in front of Congress, therefore on the most national stage possible. He uses the position he is in to voice himself to the people of higher power. Although many may be white supremacists he still has the courage to speak his mind. Stokely Carmichael grew up in a capitalistic system that limited him and his family economically and now he is in a position of power to do something about it. 

Something else that Carmichael stresses is his self-proclaimed rights. He continually explains how he does not need somebody or something in writing to tell him what he can and cannot do. When talking about the passing of a bill, he states that the bill “was for white people, not for black people; so that when you talk about open occupancy, I know I can live any place I want to live. It is white people across this country who are incapable of allowing me to live where I want to live. You need a civil rights bill, not me. I know I can live where I want to live” (Carmichael 315). This piece from his “Black Power” speech powerfully states that he leads his own life. In his mind he still maintains all of the rights that are taken away from him by the white people in the nation. He says that the resolution is that white people need to “deal with their own problems in their own communities” (Carmichael 315). There is no other way for white people to help a black person except to just stay away and act almost as a separate nation. He has seen what the nation has developed into throughout his life and is trying to develop his own solution. 

Stokely Carmichael’s approach to the fight against oppression is well calculated and has a positive impact on the African-American community. The activist that he has become has been molded since the day he was born and will continue to develop until the day that he died. It is never one thing that builds the beliefs of a man; it is everything he may encounter until the day he dies. 
