Chairman of SNCC
From Social Justice Wiki
"But the organization? [SNCC] That would have to change, inevitably, no question. That really had become clear even from the discussions during the elections. My job was to articulate those changes, project the new mission of SNCC into the national political debate, and get back to organizing as soon as possible. Simple enough."
After spending the summer of 1964 in Mississippi, Carmichael took on the job of SNCC field organizer in Lowndes County, Alabama. Over two years, he raised the number of registered black voters in the county from less than a hundred to 2,600 (which was 300 more than the registered white voters). (from the New York Times obituary for Stokely Carmichael) In 1966, he was chosen as John Lewis’ replacement as chairman of SNCC. It was clear that Stokely’s attitudes toward the movement had been changing and that the direction of SNCC was evolving as well; it was Stokely’s mission to pin down SNCC’s new message and communicate it to the nation. Above all, Carmichael’s goal was to make SNCC a national movement for the entire black community: “I had reason to feel that things were on schedule so far as advancing SNCC’s program within the national movement and to the larger political community. So everything seemed according to plan. The next big task: begin to organize the African community nationally.”
The first major dilemma Carmichael faced as chairman was whether to allow SNCC to participate in the March Against Fear. A Mississippi man named James Meredith began the March as the lone participant, and in short time he was killed. CORE and SCLC wanted to resume the march in his place, and Dr. Martin Luther King (representing SCLC) was pressuring Carmichael to make a decision on SNCC’s participation. IN the early days of the Freedom Rides, Carmichael would not have given the march, a standard exercise of non-violent direct action, a second thought, but it was clear that he was growing impatient with the non-violence movement: “The argument was familiar. Too familiar in fact. The old ‘the movement can’t allow violence to stop us’ argument all over again. Yeah, well, that was getting real tired. Stop us? How us ? Which us ? SNCC hadn’t agreed to any such march. What if the idea had been a dumb one to begin with?” Carmichael, after much discussion with Dr. King, Floyd McKissick (CORE), and other leaders, decided to support the march with SNCC’s participation. However, when Carmichael went to Greenwood to prepare for the march, he was arrested and thrown in jail.
There had been several events leading up to this point that had mounted Carmichael’s frustration: first, the murder of Medgar Evers in 1963, then the disappearance of the three Summer Project volunteers in 1964, and the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965. Carmichael was clearly growing impatient with non-violence when he hesitantly agreed to the march, and this most recent arrest was the last straw. When he was released from jail, Carmichael immediately announced:
“This is the 27th time I have been arrested—and I ain’t going to jail no more! The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin’ us is to take over. We been saying ‘Freedom’ for six years and we ain’t got nothin’. What we gonna start saying now is ‘Black Power’!”
And with that, the mission of Carmichael, the mission of SNCC, and the mission of the movement itself changed. There was now a split between the older non-violent leaders such as Dr. King and the SCLC and the new younger “militant” students of SNCC. (Or was it a split? See below.) Carmichael only remained chairman of SNCC for about a year before he and the organization cut ties. His next step was to take his new Black Power ideology and put it in print, co-authoring a book with Charles Hamilton. (Go to Black Power Page)
Setting the Record Straight: Carmichael vs. King?
"Also, according to [media] accounts, this was when the 'ideological struggle' between SCLC and SNCC, or between Dr. King and me, became public. A struggle expressed as a battle between shouted slogans, 'Black Power' versus 'Freedom Now.' Wrong on both counts, wrong, wrong, wrong, and worse, trivial: as though Dr. King and I were high school cheerleaders. They sure do have a habit of reducing the black community and our issues to absurdity."
Leading up to his election as chairman of SNCC, Carmichael had gotten quite close to Martin Luther King, Jr. through various projects in the South on which they both worked. Even before they met, Carmichael looked to King as the leader of the civil rights movement, the Ghandi of black Americans (refer back to Nonviolent Action Group). When Carmichael was named chairman of SNCC, King gave him crucial advice about how to lead an organization under public scrutiny. Both men had a great respect for what the other was trying to accomplish. Though Carmichael's call for "Black Power" deviated from the traditional struggle that King advocated, it did not mean that Carmichael's camp were militant or purposely turning against King. However, the media took the disagreement and escalated it, as if to instigate a bigger conflict. But as Carmichael told his Ready for Revolution co-author, Ekwueme Michael (Mike) Thelwell, "But, y'know, it doesn't really matter, Thelwell. Dr. King knows that never was true." Conflict or no conflict, the movement continued.
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Quotations on this page taken from Ready for Revolution.