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. This is proved in Carmichael’s black power speech when he tells us that they, the white majority, “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, African American’s and The Caucasian majority would never be the same

Throughout the entirety of Carmichales speech, Carmichael comes off as crazy. At first, it sounds like he is in a very powerful position and is becoming power hungry. Carmichael comes off as 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” (Carolina reader). This is just a preview to how power hungry Carmichael sounded during his speech. However during this time period, 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? Well, Blacks were treated horribly during the 60s, so  horrible in fact that it was almost as if slavery was still legal. For example, a article on digitalhistory.uh.edu stated “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. Once Carmichael picked up on this, He had it. He realized very quickly that African Americans were not going to be treated equally and brought it upon himself to do whatever it takes to get that to happen

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. Martin Luther King and Malcom X did their parts, however they were non violent leaders leading an African American community into a battle that needed to be violent. Carmichael became that violent 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 civil rights movement event 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 approach. 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 however they were never close, that was, until may 6th of 1960 came around. 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” (Carolina reader). 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 glance, Carmichaels speech comes off aggressive and almost as if he wants to be a civil rights dictator so to say. He sounds like 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 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.” This statement is so powerful because it is coming from a high ranking soldier in the military of a country who prides itself on being a melting pot and is known worldwide as a “free country”. 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. Smith and Carlos 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.
