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Spring 2004

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Finding Peace Through One Final Revolution
Stokely Carmichael's autobiography remembers the late black activist

-Leslie Wolfe ’80G




	photo by Ben Barnhart

THE PLOT WAS HATCHED IN 1997. Following a UMass Amherst-sponsored tribute to Stokely Carmichael, Carmichael and Ekwueme Michael Thelwell ’69G, professor of Afro-American studies, kicked back for a late night conversation. Formerly schoolmates at Howard University and members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Carmichael and Thelwell had much catching up to do.

Thelwell asked Carmichael about his arrest on trumped up charges for trying to overthrow the military dictatorship of a West African country. “By the way, how did you ever get out of that mess?” Thelwell asked. “You never did tell me.” Such an arrest normally occasioned torture and execution, but Stokely related an unexpected story: People from New York to Tokyo demonstrated at the African country’s embassies. Telegrams and telephone calls poured in from Europe, Cuba and even the Palestine Liberation Organization. Black mayors, power brokers and activists in America and Africa applied pressure. The abashed dictatorship backed off and released him. “That’s one hell of a story, bro,” Thelwell declared. “You’ve got to write some of this stuff down.”

Thus began a final conspiracy between two elder radicals. Carmichael would relate the stories and Thelwell would write them down. But if they were to succeed in creating Carmichael’s autobiography, they would have to move quickly—Carmichael was in the late stages of cancer.

Thelwell began to tape hours of interviews and conversations with Carmichael that he would later shape into a chronological narrative. A project that occupied six years of Thelwell’s life, Ready for Revolution (Scribner, $35) is clearly a labor of love. “I don’t think there are many people in the world on whose life I would spend six years,” says Thelwell. But he cites the personal regard he had for Stokely: “His generosity of spirit, his immense courage, commitment and integrity, and his warmth and good humor of his personality—he was an amazing human being.”

Amazing, perhaps, but wasn’t Carmichael, as chairman of SNCC and Honorary Prime Minister of the Black Panther Party, the one who drove a wedge in the civil rights movement? Wasn’t he reputed to alienate Dr. Martin Luther King by calling for black separatism? The Carmichael of 1960s television news clips is an angry man shaking his clenched fist, exhorting crowds to chants of “Black Power!”

All these media filtered images and perceived ideas about Carmichael are turned on their head by his life story. The portrait of Carmichael that emerges is of a gentleman of the old school: self-effacing, modest, funny, generous and Bible-quoting.

His story traces an early childhood in Trinidad and schooling at Bronx High School of Science and at Howard. It takes the reader along on freedom rides and voter registration drives in Mississippi and Alabama. It charts the rise of the Black Power movement. It follows him to Africa and tells of his work for Pan-African freedom and independence. And it ends with his final struggle: Carmichael died of cancer in 1998. The book was published late last year, on the fifth anniversary of his passing.

While the book’s dominant theme is revolution, it’s filled with affectionate portraits of family and friends, including Dr. King, whom Carmichael adored. Fond reminiscences aside, this is not a lightweight memoir. Weighing in at 835 pages, the book is a powerful historical document. Among Carmichael’s friends and acquaintances were the leaders of the civil rights movement, and he was present at many landmark events. Says Thelwell: “The trajectory of his life intersected every area of the struggle of a very militant generation, at a very influential and a very consequential period of American history and the struggle of black people.”

One of this autobiography’s greatest strengths is that Thelwell was often a witness to the narrative, allowing him to clarify and expand when Carmichael’s memory fails or when he’s reluctant to boast. The interjections are sometimes Thelwell’s own recollections, sometimes documented evidence (such as reports from the FBI’s counterintelligence program). More often, though, it’s the voices of other participants in the struggle.

Thelwell’s admiration for Carmichael shines through, as does his respect for his friend’s political activities. Yet nothing is glossed over; his “crimes” are well documented. By age 24, Carmichael had been arrested nearly 30 times. He was brutally beaten both in and out of jail, and was tortured in the notorious Parchman Farm prison. Yet he persisted in flouting the law by organizing voter registration, picketing segregated businesses, and “driving while black.” The automobile he drove while organizing black voters in the South was riddled with bullet holes, and a fellow organizer who borrowed the car was shot and nearly killed.

Carmichael, also known by his African name, Kwame Ture, came to believe that the goal of black people in the United States should not be integration, but cultural, psychological and economic self-determination. He believed that African-Americans should not aim for assimilation; rather they should look to their own culture for identity and strength while striving to become equal partners in a free and open society. This formulation, essentially “Black Power,” made him an international celebrity by the time he turned 25. It also made him a pariah to the white establishment and some conservative sectors of the black establishment. He was branded a racist.

Perhaps the most dangerous false charge leveled against Carmichael was that he was a Communist. Although he met with Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh, his allegiance was to the worldwide struggle of black people. His was a disciplined commitment—and a nearly lethal one. While the press demonized him as a seditious radical, the FBI, the KGB and the Black Panther Party distributed misinformation that he was a CIA agent. He became a target for groups on both the far right and far left.

It seems a miracle that he survived to the age of 57.

Ready for Revolution humanizes a misunderstood icon of the 20th century. In the words of Nirvan Maharaj, a writer for Trinidad’s Guardian newspaper, “Whatever the views expressed about Kwame—racist, revolutionary, dreamer, idealistic, insane, prophet or pirate—there is indeed something special about him. A determination, a will, a strength of belief. Even though one may hate him or be opposed to him, one cannot help respecting him.”

For more info on the Department of Afro-American studies or to contact Professor Thelwell please visit: http://www.umass.edu/afroam/

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Finding Peace Through One Final Revolution

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