If you have ever read a book, story or even magazine chances are history had a influence on what you read. Whether it be a story about slaves from the 1800’s or a magazine from modern day about how women are becoming more and more involved in the work force, History helped shape that reading. However. This is proved in Stokely Carmichaels black power speech. In this speech, Carmichael tells us that they “have been using the word freedom for six years” and that it was time to start using the words black power. Due to the fact that although they were legally free, they were treated as if they were. After Stokely Carmichael said those words, nothing would be the same.

After reading Carmichaels speech, I thought he was crazy. In my mind I was thinking “ how could someone with this kind of power think that this is the solution to the problem.” Carmichael seemed like a nut job that the African American people all got behind because he said it as it was (kind of like Donald Trump). For example, in his speech, Black Power, Stokely Carmichael states that the believed “Integration is irrelevant when initiated by blacks and that it was a subterfuge for the maintenance of white supremacy.” After reading that statement he made, I went into my research on the civil rights movement with a bias mind. During my research I read that there were many nonviolent movements that were successful such as Freedom Summer, the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Selma to Montgomery March, and the ever so famous March On Washington. All of these movements were nonviolent, so why would you need fix something that wasn’t broken? And then it hit me. I quickly rushed to see how Blacks were treated during the 60’s and quickly found a article on digitalhistory.uh.edu stating “black Americans suffered humiliation, insult, embarrassment, and discrimination.” Just because African Americans were given rights under Federal law doesn’t mean that white people would treat them normally. And that is what made Carmichael say to himself enough is enough it’s time to fight back thus leading to his black Power Speech.

First, History influenced that speech Carmichael wrote. During the time period of the 1960’s African Americans were oppressed and in need of a leader. Carmichael became that leader when he came up with the phrase “black power.” When Carmichael said these words in 1966, it was the beginning of the movement from nonviolence to violence in order to achieve liberation independent of whites. However during this time period, another movement was happening, the march on Washington, of which Carmichael was a part of. The march on Washington was a African American movement to get congress to pass a civil rights bill that would give African Americans more freedom. Carmichael viewed the march as “only a sanitized, middle-class version of the real black movement.” This shows that even though Martin Luther King Jr was successful with the march on Washington, Carmichael still felt that violence was necessary in order to achieve full African American freedom. Everything about this African American civil rights movement influenced Carmichael to make the switch from nonviolence to violence. Although there are plenty of nonviolent protests that are successful such as the freedom riders and Rosa parks sitting in the front of the bus, Carmichael still watched from his hotel room as violent and nonviolent African American protesters were brutally beaten. It was then that Carmichael, the leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had enough and switched his movement to a violent one.

All of this history has influenced how I take in Carmichaels speech and changed how I view both the speech and Carmichaels aproach. How could all of these bills get passed and all of these movements succeed but still African Americans can still be beaten and abused all based on their skin color. Take the civil rights act for example. For years and years African Americans fought for their right to vote. They were even close to it when they were awarded the three fifths compromise. However on May 6th, 1960, the Civil Rights Act was signed and now under Federal Law, all African Americans had the right to vote. They got what they wanted, however they would still be treated unfairly amongst their communities. This made me understand where Carmichael was coming from when he stated in his speech “how can white people who are the majority and who are responsible for making democracy work miserably fail.” America is a country that prides itself on freedom and equality and yet after all these bills and acts have passed, they are still treated poorly, And Carmichael has every right to blame the majority for that failure. At first when I read this speech I viewed Carmichael as a radical person who was the head of a powerful movement and figured he was just a corrupt leader. Another instance is Vietnam. African Americans were allowed to fight in the war. Although they were allowed to fight, they were still discriminated by the white soldiers. Also, the money that the American government had to pour into the Military, they had to take it from somewhere else. The government cut funding poor African American communities in the United States. This made the African American community and the African American soldiers to get extremely angry. So angry in fact, that black soldiers began to identify themselves with the Vietnamese. This is because they were both in the same boat. Vietnamese Americans were being placed in camps and were hated by the white majority, and although African Americans weren’t placed in camps, they were treated by the white majority the same way. Even the soldiers that were overseas were treated bad. This was evident when Lance corporal William L. Harvey came out and said,” Vietnam is a white man’s war, black men should not go, only to return and fight whites at home.” These examples further prove that although African Americans had the right to fight in the military, but that didn’t mean the white majority would think and treat them differently now. After reading about the history of the civil rights movement, specifically in the 50’s and 60’s, I see where his anger comes from and it is clear to me why he felt the need to fight fire with fire. 

The black power movement ended up carrying on far after the 60s. In fact African Americans were now proud to have different color skin. A major moment that proved this was when black panther members and Olympic athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos won gold and bronze medals in the two hundred meter at the 1968 Olympic games. Tommie and John stood on the podium and as the star spangled banner echoed through the air,  they raised their fists in the air which shows how strong the black power movement was. All Carmichael was trying to do was get people to realize the nonviolent protests didn’t work and that African Americans were in dire need to come together and expose whites of their failures. It was the whites job to create a democracy for everyone and they succeeded in doing so, however maintaining that democracy for everyone was a failure. African Americans were still treated poorly and if it hadn’t been for the black power movement, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
