Stokely Carmichael 1942-
BLACK POWER
I'm going to try to speak the truth. That's very hard to do in this country, you know. A country which was founded on racism and lies. It's very hard to speak the truth. But we're going to try to do that tonight.
Now, these guys-those guys over there. They're called the press. I got up one morning and read a story. They were talking about a cat named Stokely Carmichael. I say he must he a ba-a-a-a-d nigger [laughter]. For he's raising a whole lot of sand. I had to get up and look in the mirror and make sure it was me [laughter]. Because all I said is that I'm just a poor old black boy, and I think it's time black people stop begging and take what belongs to them [shouts and applause]. And takes what belongs to them [continued applause].
And I said that because I learned that from America. They take what belongs to them. And what don't belong to them, if they can't get it, they destroy it [applause]. So I am not even trying to destroy what don't belong to us. I'm just saying, we going to take it come hell or high water. We going to take what belongs to us. Because it's been taken away from us [applause].
The reason we're here tonight is we want to talk to black people. We want to talk to black people because the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was founded to help free black people. And when we start talking to black people, everybody gets upset; I wonder why [applause].
I'm going to talk tonight about integration. About what it means. About who it's for. About who it benefits, and what it does to black people. I want to talk about integration tonight They tell us, and see behind me stands ministers of the Bible, and they will bear me out, that Jesus Christ said, and He's the only man who said, "Only through me shall ye enter into the kingdom of heaven." But what white people say to us with integration is that only through me shall you have better things, that's what they say when they talk about integration [applause].
Yes sir. We're black, and we're poor; and every time we talk about poverty they tell us to join hands with them, that's going to be the answer to our problem. Half the time they don't realize that they are our problem. They are our problem [applause].
They don't even know what integration means. It is the meeting of cultures. Now if they really want to integrate, tell them to move out of Westchester and move into our communities. Tell them to move into Watts; tell them to move into South Side Chicago, if they want to integrate. Tell them to send their lily-white children from the suburbs into our crowded school where they stole money from, send them there. And they're not willing to do that [applause].
We are going to move to better our schools by ourselves. Yes, Lyndon Baines Johnson, we going to go it alone, because that's what we've been doing for lo these four hundred years inside your country. Don't you be ashamed to tell them we going to go it alone. We going to go it alone inside here but outside, brothers, is a whole lot of us waiting to join hands. We may he a minority inside this country, but outside in this world, he's a minority. He'd better learn to realize that [applause]. He'd better learn to realize that [continued applause].
I'm a little bit surprised that Lyndon Baines Johnson, the racist president of this country, can stand up and draw color lines and say ninety per cent against ten per cent-he said it, he drew the color lines. And all the good white folk in the country didn't say to him, "Hunh-uh Lyndon, it's not based on color." They all said, "Well, what you going to do? You only ten per cent." Yeah, we ten percent, brother, but we strewed strategically all over your country, and we've got black brothers in Vietuam [shouts and applause]. We have black brothers in your army, and they may not have woken up yet, but, baby, if you mess with us inside in this country, you going to have a war in Vietnam [applause]. You going to have a war in Vietnam [continued applause].
Let it be known that we don't need threats. This is 1966. It's time out for beautiful words. It's time out for euphemistic statements. And it's time out for singing "We Shall Overcome." It's time to get some Black Power [applause]. It's time to get some Black Power [continued applause].
Now they take our kids out of our community, and they pick the best. You got to be the best to get next to them. You got to be the best to get next to them; they pick the best The five or six out of every school and send them to their school, and they call that integration. And they tell us that that's the way we going to solve our problem. They leave the rest of our children to stay in the filthy ghettos that they took the money from, and the rest of us get up and say, "Yeah, they working on solving the problem!" Baby, they ain't doing nothing but absorbing the best that we have. It's time that we bring them back into our community [applause].
You need to tell Lyndon Baines Johnson, and all them white folk, that we don't have to move into white schools to get a better education. We don't have to move into white suburbs to get a better house. All they need to do is stop exploiting and oppressing our communities, and we going to take care of our communities. That's what you've got to tell them. You've got to tell them that when a lot of black people get together it doesn't mean that the slum area's going to develop. It's only because we don't own and control our cornmunities that they are the way they are [shouts and applause]. You've got to tell them
[continued applause].
You've got to tell them that if we've got the money, fiw same amount of money that they put in their suburban school that we put in our schools, that we would produce black people who are just as capable of taking care of business, as they're producing white people. They've been stealing our money [applause] that's where the problem exists; we've got to tell them.
Sounds a bit absurd; I'm disturbed by a lot of black people going around saying, "Oh, man, anything all black, it ain't no good." I want to talk to that man. When I was in college, and I went to a black college-they were trying to be white, that was their only problem [applause]. They became so white that the president is now for the war in Vietnam; he's made it in this society, he's integrated fully. Let him stay there [applause].
There's a thing called a syllogism. And it says like, if you're' born in Detroit, you're beautiful; that's the major premise. The minor premise is-I am born in Detroit. Therefore, I am beautiful. Anything all black is bad-major premise. Minor premise- I am all black. Therefore [pause], yeah, yeah [laughter and applause] yeah. You're all out there, and the man telling you that anything all black is bad, and you talking about yourself, and you don't even know it. You ain't never heard no white people say that anything all white is bad. You ain't never heard them say it. They only starting to get upset now because we're going" for some power. Before they didn't never criticize the fact that their government was all white and was nothing but power, that's' white power [applause]. They didn't say nothing about that [continued applause].
Now you've got to be crystal clear on how you think where you move. You've got to explain to people. I didn't go to Mississippi to fight anybody to sit next to them. I was
to get them off my back. That's what my fight is. Thats my fight is. I don't fight anybody to sit next to him. I don't want to sit next to them. I just want them to get the barriers out my way. Because I don't want to sit next to Jim Clark, Eastland Johnson, Humphrey, or none of the others. I just want them to get off my back [shouts and applause]. Get off my back -tinued applause].
I'm very concerned, because you see we have a lot of leaders, and I want to make it clear that I'm no leader. I represent the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. That's the sole source of my power, and that's Black Power. I'm no Negro leader, but I tinnk that we have to speak out about the war in Vietnam. We've got to talk to black people about the war in Vietnam. This country has reduced us, black people, to such a state that the only way our black youths can have a decent life is to become a hired killer in the army [applause]. Don't you know that? I'm going to speak the truth tonight That when a man can get up to say, "Well the best chance any Negro can have of course is to go into the Armed Forces and, therefore, that's why there's so many of them." Do you mean to tell me for me to have a decent life I've got to become a hired killer and fight it out in Vietnam? Baby, it's time we stayed here and fight it out here [shouts and applause]. That's where we going to fight it out; that's where we going to stay [continued applause].
You take a man, and you send him to Vietnam, a black man; and he's fighting to give free elections to North Vietnam, that's what they tell us, it's a lie, but that's what they tell us. And that same black man who's fighting to give free elections to a North Vietnamese can't even have free elections in Mabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana [sic], and Washington D.C. [applause]. That man is nothing but a black mercenary. A mercenary is a hired killer, and Western civilization knows a lot about mercenaries-they invented them. They used them in the Congo not too long ago. They using them now in Vietnam. You send a black man to Vietnam to fight for rights, and he doesn't have any rights in his homeland, he's a black mercenary. You send a black man to Vietnam, and he gets shot and killed fighting for his country; and you bring him home, and they won't bury him in his land-he's a black mercenary [applause]. He's a black mercenary [continued applause]. And if we going to be black mercenaries, then they ought to pay us twenty-five thousand dollars a year and let us come home every weekend [laughter and applause]. Since they not going to do that, we going to have to develop in our communities enough internal strength to tell everyone in this country that we're not going to your damn war period [shouts and applause]. We've got to do that [continued applause]....
We have to start looking to Africa, brothers and sisters. We've got to tell our African brothers that we talking about Black Power for them, too. Black Power so they can get up and take arms and shoot the hell out of the white folk in South Africa. That what we've got to tell them [shouts and applause]. That what we've got to tell them [continued applause]. Because we going to move to tell them that once they control South Africa, then Standard Oil's going to be reduced to our position, they going to be begging, too. We've got to tell them to get rid of Chase Manhattan Bank in South Africa. We've got to tell them it's time they told the missionaries to take their Bibles and go back to Europe and preach the white man's burden there where it belongs [applause]. That's what we've got to tell them [cou tinued applause]. That's what we've got to tell them.
Rudyard Kipling made a mistake. The white man's burden should have been preached in England. He should have left us alone. They came with the Bibles, and we had the land; they left with the land, and we got the Bibles [applause]. Yes, we've got to tell the brothers in South Africa that all that gold and diamonds and oil is theirs, and they've got to get some Black Power and control it. That's what they've got to do. And we've got to tell the black brothers in Africa that we stand one hundred per cent behind Mr. Nkrumah; he's our man, he's our man [applause]. We've got to tell them [continued applause]. We've got to tell them.
But you've got to open your eyes and understand what's going on in this world. And we've got to tell our African brothers that we were hep to the World Court. We knew the United States was giving a racist country like Australia two votes so they could make believe they were voting on their side; we going tell them we hep. We know what's happening. Brother, it's 1966 and we been here for years and our eyes are open wide. And we seeing you clear through, and you're nothing but a racist country, and you've built and live upon sweat and blood of our black skins and we're standing up today, we're standing up [applause]. We're standing up [continued applause].
Now I'm no Negro leader, so I don't ever apologize for any black person. And don't you ever apologize for any black person who throws a Molotov cocktail [shouts and applause]. Don't you ever apologize [continued applause]. And don't you ever call those things riots, because they are rebellions, that's what they are [applause]. That's what they are [continued applause]. And the truth of the matter is that they're not organized because if they were we'd get a hell of a lot more besides sprinklers on hydrants [shouts and applause].
And we've got to stand tall in this time and tell the man just where it's at. And you've got to let your organizations not act as a buffer zone between you and the man. But tell the man
the way you telling it, and if they not doing that, move them out the way, move them out the way [applause].
Now we've got to talk about this thing called the serious coalition. You know what that's all about? That says that black folks and their white liberal friends can get together and overcome. We have to examine our white liberal friends. And I'm going to call names this time aroun& We've got to examine our white liberal friends who come to Mississippi and march with us, and can afford to march because our mothers, who are their maids, are taking care of their house and their children; we got to examine them [applause]. Yeah; I'm going to speak the truth tonight. I'm going to tell you what a white liberal is. You talking about a white college kid joining hands with a black man in the ghetto, that college kid is fighting for the right to wear a beard and smoke pot, and we fighting for our lives [cheers and a~ plause]. We fighting for our lives [continued applause].
That missionary comes to the ghetto one summer, and the next summer he's in Europe, and he's our ally. That missionary has a black mammy, and he stole our black mammy from us. Because while she was home taking care of them, she couldn't take care of us. That's not our ally [applause]. Now I met some of those white liberals on the march, and I asked one man, I said, look here brother. I said, you make what, about twenty-five thousand dollars a year? He mumbled. I said, well dig. Look here. Here are four black Mississippians. They make three dollars a day picking cotton. See they have to march; you can afford to march; you can afford to march. I say, here's what we do. Take your twenty-five thousand dollars a year divide it up evenly. Let all five of you make five thousand dollars a year. He was for everybody working hard by the sweat of their brow [laughter and shouts]. That's a white liberal, ladies and gentlemen. That's a white liberal. You can't form a coalition with people who are economically secure. College students are economically secure; they've already got their wealth; we fighting to get ours. And for us to get it is going to mean tearing down their system, and they are not willing to work for their own destruction. Get that into your own minds now [applause]. Get that into your own minds now [continued applause].
Now we want to talk about the great white father of Detroit shouts and laughter]. I'm talking about master-captain-boss-man Walter Reuther. Yes, sir. I want to talk about that white man, that great white father [applause]. Now that's our friend. Let me explain something to you just politically about our friend. Mr. Reuther is a man who speaks for organized labor. Most of our youths are unemployed. Are you hep to that? Understand that very clearly. Organized labor in this country are fighting to keep what they have and leave the people unemployed, and we're joming the unemployment ranks everyday, and you're tailcing about he's our friend. You ain't got no sense politically. You ain't got no sense politically. And that man is talking from a base of Black Power, more Black Power than black politicians are talking from a base of Black Power. He goes and talks about Black Power. He says I have so many black people in my organization. They can deliver so many votes. He using Black Power to tell you not to talk about it; you sitting there saying uh-huh, umhumrn [applause].
You talking about joining hands with a white liberal, the great white father, Walter Reuther; and that man is for the war in Vietnam. Where is your political sense? We can't afford to be for the war in Vietnam, but our friend is for twenty-two per cent of the people being shot in Vietnam, us; he's our friend [applause]. He's our friend. Baby, I know who my enemies are, but God will have to deliver us from our friends. I'm afraid, gentle-men, that you're going to have to pray every night for help from our friends; we going to need it, we sure need it. Now that's what we've got to talk about.
We have unemployment ranks growing every day. Reuther's not concerned about unemployed people; that's us, we have to be concerned about our youth for a change and stop being concerned about the image of a filthy country that's racist. We have to be concerned about us and not the image of this country [shouts and applause]. That's what we have to be concerned about [continued applause].
See we have to begin to define success. See we don't have any longer to prove to them that we're all the things that they say that we're not. Ralph Bunche has done that and now he's just like them. Carl T. Rowan has done that and we can't even tell him any more. George Schuyler is up there, and I've got to look hard and find out whether he is or he is not. It's time for us to say to our black brothers that success is going to mean coming back into your community and using your skills to help develop your people [applause].
It's time that we say to our doctors-yes, that we don't want to hear this garbage about you charging twenty-five dollars for us, because that's what they do uptown, if you went up there they'd do the same thing. Let that man know that he gets his money from us and he ought to be [missing text]
cents when he sees us because we ain't got no money. We got to define success for our black doctors. We've got to tell them that they ought not to charge us any money because we can't afford to pay it. Talking about charging ten dollars for a visit because that's what the white man does uptown. And he's making money off of us. Next time he does that tell him to go uptown and charge the white man ten dollars [laughter and applause].
Yes sir, we've got to get our black lawyers. We've got to bring them in here. We got to tell them that we understand they moving now to give us some protection after we got beat up by some white power-in our communities. And we've got to say to those lawyers, we want you to be aggressive. We want you to get back the districts that they just gerrymandered and took away from us. Get them back now. We want you to be aggressive. Move to disband the white power forces, the gestapo troops that beat us up every Friday night and Saturday night. Move to displace them; we want you to be aggressive. Work for us for a change, gentlemen [shouts and applause].
Gentlemen, we want to talk about nonviolence. We want to say that nonviolence has to begin to be taught in our neighbor-hoods. We have to teach ourselves to love and respect each other. Because the psychology of that man has worked on us, and we're trying to destroy each other every Friday and Saturday night. That's where we're going to preach nonviolence and nowhere else [shouts and applause]. That's where we're going to preach non'violence [continued applause]. That's where we're going to preach nonviolence [continued applause].
Yes, brothers and sisters, we're going to move to talk to our young brothers who are gang members. We're going to bring them together, and we going to have some real energy in this country. We're going to tell them that they ought not to be shooting and killing each other. Because you understand, you got to understand the psychology of Western civilization; it is a master race. It is a master race. They think they're the masters of the world. They think that they're Cod and nobody has a right to hate them, that's what they think [continued applause]. That's what they think.
It's all right, it's all right for you to hate your brother and cut him up on Friday night and Saturday night; but don't even hate them if they're exploiting you, that's no good. They think thev're masters of the world; they think they God. And we've got to tell them, "Baby, you ain't God, we've just let you play.
And now it's time out for play. We've got to bring them to their knees. We've got to build a power base that will be our protection. That if they touch one black man in California while he's taking his wife to the hospital, if they touch one black man in Mississippi while he's walking down the highway, if they touch a group of black people riding their horses on their day off in Detroit, that we will move to disrupt this whole damned country [applause]. We've got to tell them [continued applause].
And we had better understand that we going to have to go it alone. And don't be ashamed of that brothers and sisters, because we're very Christian. They taught us about David and Goliath [shouts and applause]....
When I talk about Black Power, it is presumptuous for any white man to talk about it, because I'm talking to black people [applause]. And I've got news for our liberal friend Bobby Kennedy. I got news for that white man. When he talks about his Irish Catholic power that made him to the position where he is that he now uses black votes in New York City to run for the presidency in 1972, he ought to not say a word about Black Power. Now the Kennedys built a system of purely Irish Catholic power with Irish Nationalism interwoven into it. Did you know that? And that's how come they run, rule, own Boston lock stock and barrel including all the black people inside it. That's Irish power. And that man going to get up and tell you-all; well he shouldh't talk about ~ack Power. He ran and won in New York Citv on Black Power: his brother became president because Black Power made him president [shouts and applause]. Black Power made his brother president [continued applause]. And he's got the white nerve to talk about Black Power [continued applause]....
Citation:
"The text is from 'Stokely Carmichael Explains Black Power to a Black Audience in Detroit", from a tape recording made of a speech delivered at a rally on July 30,1966