Stokely Carmichael, the author of “Black Power” and the chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), was an influential figure during his lifetime. He was active in the Black Power Movement and the Civil Rights Movement and spent his career advocating for African American rights. Carmichael worked with Martin Luther King Jr to lead the SNCC’s actions against a military draft and the Vietnam War. He was a believer in anti-imperialism and a believer that America was a pretentious and racist nation. “Black Power,” Stokely Carmichael’s speech, which was presented to a group of white college students, was given in 1967. The Vietnam war took place between 1954 to 1975, which ultimately shows that Carmichael’s speech was given while the war was taking place. The fact that this speech was presented in the middle of the Vietnam war makes issues of racism more convincing and relevant because Carmichael was using his own personal encounters. By using his own experiences as an African American during this time, Carmichael was able to condemn the internal and external racism that America struggled with during the Vietnam War. 

In the article titled ‘Young Americans and the Draft,” the author, Donald Maxwell, shares basic information about the history of the military draft that was instated during the Vietnam War. A large part of the article discusses how racism was evident inside of the United States when drafting citizens. The Draft Board consisted of a group of people who were in charge of deciding which citizens would be drafted into the Vietnam War. Due to immense racism and inequality at the time of the war, not many African Americans were put on the draft board. Donald Maxwell states, “Blacks were disproportionately drafted and were more likely to serve on the front lines” (Maxwell 37). The Draft Board put African Americans in more dangerous positions while white people were placed in higher ranked roles. Due to the fact that African Americans were less likely to go to college, they were also less eligible for educational deferments from the draft. This allowed white people a higher chance of escaping the draft while African Americans were more likely to be forced to fight. This represents the internal racism that took place inside of the United States during the Vietnam war. 

Throughout the text, “Black Power,” Stokely Carmichael talked about the Vietnam War and how African Americans should protest against being drafted into it. He believed this because during the time period of the Vietnam War, African Americans in the United States were discriminated against by being placed on the front lines of the war, not having representation on the Draft Board, and being deprived of basic human rights (Maxwell 37). In his speech, Carmichael said,

 “Any black man fighting in the war in Vietnam is nothing but a black mercenary. Any time a black man leaves the country where he can’t vote to supposedly deliver the vote to somebody else, he’s a black mercenary. Any time a black man leaves this country, gets shot in Vietnam on foreign ground, and returns home and you won’t give him a burial place in his own homeland, he’s a black mercenary” (Carmichael 320).

In this quote, Carmichael was suggesting that African Americans were treated as foreign citizens in the United States. Because African Americans were deprived of the basic human rights that other Americans got, they were treated and viewed as non-Americans. Therefore, Carmichael describes African Americans that were drafted into the war as mercenaries. And because of this, he believes that African Americans were fighting for a foreign army. 

Carmichael believed that the United States was not only racist inside of its borders, but also towards other countries. In the article, “Ideology and the Vietnam War,” the author, Chittaranjan Alva, says, “…involvement in Vietnam was seen and cast as a high sense of American responsibility” (Alva 70). During this time, America felt that it was the super-power of all countries. They had a strong military, government, and economy which allowed their confidence to soar. Because of this confidence, the US started to feel superior to all non-white, minority countries, like Vietnam. Because the United States felt superior, they believed that all other countries were undereducated, impoverished, and powerless and that it was their job to fix them and show them the “right way of life”. This explains why Alva said that Americans felt as if it was their responsibility to get involved with Vietnam because it was their job to better the lesser countries (Alva 70).

With this idea in mind, Stokely Carmichael said, “The U.S. cannot justify its existence as the policeman of the world any longer. The marines are at ready disposal to bring democracy, and if the Vietnamese don’t want democracy, well then, ‘We’ll just wipe them out, because they don’t deserve to live if they won’t have our way of life.’” (Carmichael 320). Here, Carmichael was suggesting that the United States thought they were superior to all other countries. By calling the United States the “policeman of the world”, he was stating that the US thought it was necessary to regulate and control other countries. This idea of superiority over minority countries was how the United States was externally racist. Because the US consisted of mostly white people, they immediately saw themselves as a more preferable country than a place like Vietnam, where most of its inhabitants were non-white. 

There is strong support for the idea that there was internal and external racism throughout the US because African Americans were forced to fight a war that they shouldn’t have fought. They weren’t given the right to vote, they were forced onto the front lines, and they weren’t able to excuse themselves from the war as easily as white people could. Carmichael’s belief that the US should not have gotten involved in Vietnam is compelling because the war was based off an ideology that America was superior rather than a legitimate reason. Furthermore, his speech was effective because it was presented in 1967, which was in the middle of the Vietnam war. This made the speech more relevant to Carmichael’s audience, which also made it more convincing. 

As an African American man during this time, Stokely Carmichael was clearly disappointed by the internal and external racism that was spreading throughout the US and beyond. His tone during the speech was filled with frustration and condemnation because of how the United States treated minorities. The United States displayed unfair discrimination towards all non-whites, whether it be internally or externally. African Americans were forced to fight for the United States even when the country refused to treat them like US citizens. The United States also fought “inferior” countries, like Vietnam, in order to force democracy and their lifestyle upon them. Condemning racism and scolding the United States for its unjust behavior to an audience filled with white college students was a bold move for Stokely Carmichael. However, because of that reason, his speech was even more effective.  
