All the scared Negroes are not dead

All the scared Negroes are not dead

Kevin Palmer

Stokley Carmichael, also known as Kwame Ture, was not a scared Negro who lived trying to make white folk feel comfortable. In 1964, he graduated from Howard University in Washington, DC. He was offered a full graduate scholarship to Harvard University, but turned it down. Carmichael was an example of what it meant to be a courageous, intelligent Black man in an overtly racist America. His 1966 Black Power address at UC Berkeley was selected as one of the 100 most significant American political speeches of the 20th century. The entire speech is must reading for African Americans.

Some excerpts of the speech: “I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for Black people. For example, I am Black. I know that. I also know that while I am Black I am a human being, and therefore I have the right to go into any public place. White people didn’t know that. Every time I tried to go into a place they stopped me. So, some boys had to write a bill to tell that white man, “He’s a human being; don’t stop him.” That bill was for that white man, not for me.”

Additionally, “So, that the failures to pass a civil rights bill isn’t because of Black Power. It is the incapability of whites to deal with their own problems inside their own communities. We are now engaged in a psychological struggle in this country, and that is whether or not Black people will have the right to use the words they want to use without white people giving their sanction to it. We maintain, whether they like it or not, we going to use the word “Black Power.” This country knows what power is. And it knows what Black Power is because it deprived Black people of it for 400 years.

Moreover, according to Wikiquote.org, while addressing a crowd alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the 1966 March Against Fear, Carmichael said, “The time for running has come to an end. You can tell them white folk in Mississippi, that all the scared Negroes are dead.” Unfortunately, not all the scared Negroes died. Some ran to Augusta, Georgia, procreated, and now their offspring are hugging newly elected racist politicians, as well as doing the bidding of influential white folk.