Stokely Carmichael

Stokely Carmichael was a leader of SNCC and the Black Panther Party. He was an interesting guy. I only had the chance to talk to him briefly, and by the time I met him he had changed his name to Kwame Ture and was advocating for a Communist Pan-African movement.

I got the chance to meet him in the concrete block basement of a building that is now a dorm for seminarians. He was an imposing presence, and to me a man who seemed to straddle two eras. He talked about justice. I remember a few other white faces in the small group, but we were in the minority. I was shocked at the lack of people present and at the intimacy of his speech. I was only partially surprised that many of my friends had no interest in going to see him speak even after I explained who he was. Aside from the fact that I don't think he was turning cartwheels about a prolonged conversation with a white college boy, he seemed like a good man. Very political. He was pleased to hear I had learned his name along with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcom X as three of the prominant black leaders of the 1960s.

The other night, a friend gave me a car ride home from work. He had met Mr. Carmichael too, and I suspect had several conversations with him. He also knew Bill Ayers. Where have all the radicals gone?