Deb­bie Ja­cob

Trinidad-born Amer­i­can Civ­il Rights or­gan­is­er Stoke­ly Carmichael had a feel­ing that 1965 would be a wa­ter­shed year in the Amer­i­can Civ­il Rights Move­ment, and he prob­a­bly even sus­pect­ed that it would be an event like Bloody Sun­day that would fi­nal­ly get the feel­ing of in­jus­tice to sink in to the Amer­i­can con­science. It didn't take long for Carmichael's hunch to be right.

On March 7, 1965, Dr Mar­tin Luther King Jr and mem­bers of the South­ern Chris­t­ian Lead­er­ship Con­fer­ence (SCLC) led a civ­il rights march in Sel­ma, Al­aba­ma. The lo­cal law en­force­ment of­fi­cers did their best to stop the march, beat­ing black peo­ple with ba­tons and spray­ing tear gas as they tried to cross the Ed­mund Pet­tus Bridge over the Al­aba­ma Riv­er on their march to Mont­gomery. About 50 peo­ple end­ed up in the hos­pi­tal.

This year marked the 50th an­niver­sary of that day known as Bloody Sun­day, mak­ing the month of March one of the rea­sons why the Sun­day Arts Sec­tion (SAS) Book Club is fea­tur­ing Stoke­ly: A Life, the bi­og­ra­phy of Carmichael writ­ten by his­to­ri­an and uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor, Pe­niel E Joseph.

Bloody Sun­day thrust Carmichael in­to the in­ter­na­tion­al spot­light. Be­fore that fate­ful day on March 7, Carmichael's in­volve­ment in or­gan­is­ing vot­er reg­is­tra­tion through the Stu­dent Non-vi­o­lent Co-or­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee (SNCC) gained no­to­ri­ety, but it was his pres­ence re­lat­ed to Bloody Sun­day that changed the course of his ca­reer as a civ­il rights or­gan­is­er who con­cen­trat­ed on vot­er reg­is­tra­tion.

Carmichael ar­rived in Sel­ma by char­ter flight from At­lanta on March 7, and he quick­ly made waves.

"Dur­ing a 3 am meet­ing with King and his trust­ed sec­ond-in-com­mand man, Ralph Aber­nathy, Carmichael urged SCLC staff to de­fy an in­junc­tion pro­hibit­ing march­ing," writes Joseph.

"Staff who had pri­vate­ly chid­ed Sun­day's march as show­boat­ing now sup­port­ed (the up­com­ing) Tues­day's ef­forts as a de­fi­ant stand against fear.... Carmichael marched at the head of the line with King on (that) Tues­day. Stoke­ly, in jeans, work boots, and a hood­ed over­coat, was im­pas­sive­ly smok­ing. It would be the last time that Carmichael par­tic­i­pat­ed in a demon­stra­tion of this scale in vir­tu­al anonymi­ty."

Carmichael brought his own per­son­al­i­ty to the Civ­il Rights Move­ment, bridg­ing the enor­mous gap, in many ways, be­tween Mar­tin Luther King and Mal­colm X.

Stoke­ly Stan­di­ford Churchill Carmichael was born on June 29, 1941. His fam­i­ly lived at 54 Ox­ford Street, Port-of-Spain. His fa­ther, a mas­ter car­pen­ter, had roots in Bar­ba­dos; his moth­er was born in the US Canal Zone in Pana­ma. His ma­ter­nal grand­moth­er came from Montser­rat and his ma­ter­nal grand­fa­ther came from An­tigua. His pa­ter­nal grand­moth­er was from To­ba­go.

This Pan-Caribbean back­ground, Joseph ar­gues, made Stoke­ly Carmichael "a cit­i­zen of the world for the rest of his life." That is how, Joseph ar­gues, Carmichael could feel at home in Port-of-Spain; the Bronx; Harlem; Wash­ing­ton, DC; Mis­sis­sip­pi; Al­aba­ma; and Conakry in Guinea.

Carmichael lived in Trinidad dur­ing British colo­nial­ism and he at­tend­ed Tran­quil­li­ty Boys' In­ter­me­di­ate School where he re­ceived a sol­id British colo­nial ed­u­ca­tion. As a child he suf­fered from asth­ma but had a dot­ing pa­ter­nal grand­moth­er who cared for him, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter his moth­er, who did not ap­pre­ci­ate the ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly re­la­tion­ship typ­i­cal of Tri­ni homes, mi­grat­ed to New York.

By 1946, both of his par­ents lived in New York. Stoke­ly Carmichael would re­main in Trinidad for five more years. He would not see his par­ents again un­til he was al­most 11, and then his life would change for­ev­er.

Note: Al­though Stoke­ly Carmichael lat­er changed his name to Kwame Ture, I have used Stoke­ly Carmichael in these book club pieces be­cause this is what he was known as at this par­tic­u­lar time in his­to­ry.

QUES­TIONS

1. What do you think would have been most no­tice­able about Stoke­ly Carmichael or Kwame Ture's iden­ti­ty as a Trinida­di­an?

2. How do you think a Trinida­di­an iden­ti­ty would have shaped his in­ter­est and his work in the Civ­il Rights Move­ment?

3. How do you think Stoke­ly Carmichael or Kwame Ture's Trinida­di­an roots would have helped his re­la­tion­ship with the grass­roots, African-Amer­i­cans he worked with as a Civ­il Rights or­gan­is­er?

Next week: How Stoke­ly Carmichael bridged the gap be­tween Trinidad and New York and es­tab­lished the iden­ti­ty that made him an im­por­tant Civ­il Rights or­gan­is­er.