
In 1966, when Stokely Carmichael gave his speech entitled “Black Power”, there was a large civil rights movement happening for the advancement of African American rights in the United States. African Americans had always been oppressed and subjected to being treated as though they are not equal ever since they arrived in the country. In Carmichael’s speech he clearly outlines all of the hardships that black people have gone through just because of their skin color. As he does this it allows the reader or listener to get an idea about what exactly it was he was fighting for and why he was fighting for it. The speech “Black Power” by Stokely Carmichael utilizes all of the wrongs that have been done to African Americans by white people to highlight the importance of being able to live wherever a person choses to. While this is effective in making his point of the urgent need to pass a law permitting black people to live in whichever neighborhood they please, it does not go over any of the steps that need to be taken in order to accomplish his goals.

The article “Race Matters: The Folks Next Door” by A. Scott Henderson provides a plethora of information on the debate of open housing and just how big of a national issue open housing was in the nineteen sixties.  It also provided an insight to just how long of a process it has been to bring this issue to the forefront of the national agenda. One of the major issues that Carmichael is hitting on in his speech is open housing. The author talks about how exclusion from housing is still going on in the country even though people would like to think that it is over and done with. African Americans have never taken this lightly and have been fighting racial zoning for over one hundred years. In fact, NAACP chapters have been formed in that name of challenging the constitutionality of racially restrictive zoning ordinances. Even as time went on and laws were passed granting African Americans the right to voting, equal educational opportunities, and fair employment, there still remained a battle on the open housing debate. Henderson theorized that the problem became to be more of an issue about infringement upon property rights since the owner wouldn’t be able to control the sale or rental of their property. However, this changed once the open housing debate became a part of the national agenda and laws began to be passed. The final act of the movement was the Jones v. Mayer case the Court decided that the Civil Rights act of 1965 stated "forbade racial discrimination in the sale or rental of housing by private individuals receiving no public funds” (Henderson 2001).  This information about the fight and struggle that the African American race had to go through in order to become equal in the eyes of the law provides a view of just how many laws had to be passes and how much time and effort it took to gradually gain rights.  The article came into use in this since because it provides all the background information and actions that were taken that Carmichael would not need to address to his audience who were fighting this battle with him. The shocking part is, is that the battle was not even for equality but to be not as far down on the pecking order as they have been. 

The Black Panther party is one of the most famous groups known for fighting for the advancement of civil rights for African Americans.  The article “Black Panther Party” by Michael Carpini is an overview of the chronicle of the Black Panther Party and how they put their ideas and policies into action. During his speech, Stokely Carmichael is speaking as the founder of the Freedom Organization of Lowndes County, Alabama, which used a Black Panther as their logo in order to be considered a political party. This interesting because it was the main focus behind the naming of the Black Panther Party.  Carmichael even became an honorary leader of the Black Panther Party while he was working with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). This overlap shows how Carmichael shared a common ideology with the Black Panther Party even though their methods could seem radical he clearly supported them. In fact, Carmichael’s speech was considered to be his turning point from “nonviolent integrationist politics to a politics of Black Power, in which Black must organize to fight for their liberation independent of whites” (USC Columbia Department of English 2016). The Black Panther Party was originally created from an organization in college which was mainly for activities that were close to campus cultural enrichment programs. The founder of the party, Huey P. Newton, also ran this organization and created the Black Panther Party when decided that wanted to organize a larger party that would relate to the entire Oakland community and the struggle for black liberation. Newton devised a ten-point platform for his newly formed party. The first nine of which involved conditions the party believed the black community deserved. These nine conditions were: freedom, full employment, an end to capitalist exploitation, decent housing, education that emphasized black history and the current plight of blacks, exemption from military service, an end to police brutality, the freeing of all black prisoners, and juries of peers for blacks on trial (Delli Carpini 2000). The tenth point was simply an overview of their demands for land, housing, education, etc. The party would often be seen carrying arms around in public in order to emphasize their policy of self-defense. They followed Malcolm X’s notion of self-defense by developing “police patrols” which would patrol an area with the overall goal of protecting citizens from police brutality. This was just one of the tactics they used to get their point across, they also used confrontational speeches, intense skirmishes, survival programs, and they also started a petition in order to decentralize police departments in Oakland. Carpini made it clear that even though the party has been thought of as a collection of small-time criminals who are anti-white, they are actually an organization about the advancement of civil rights for all minorities alike. This article had an abundant amount of information on the fight for rights and how they put their plans into action in order to take action against the suppression of the African American race. While Carmichael’s speech did an extraordinary job of motivating the audience by using all of the wrongs that have been done to their race, he fails to bring up a plan of action or any real in depth solutions to fight the problems they are facing. This is where the information provided in “Black Power” shows just how he fought for rights and respect at the local level of this battle for equality.

Stokely Carmichael’s speech was extremely well catered to his audience, that was made up of a majority of white people. It was structured in a way to bring up what he was fighting for, why he was fighting for it, and he also added what his race has gone through because of white people. While his speech was absolutely perfect for the nineteen sixties when the entire country knew about the battle for equality it did not provide any information for people who weren’t apart of the movement. Carmichael in no way should have catered to these people since they were not a part of his target audience so this is where the articles “Black Panther Party” and “Race Matters: The Folks Next Door” come into play. These articles embody exactly what Carmichael was fighting so passionately for and provide information on what was happening in the country leading up and following his speech. Without any background research or prior knowledge, it seems that the reader would not gain as great of an appreciation for this tremendous battle that took hundreds of years for the African Americans to complete. 