“Smash everything Western civilization has created”: Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture)’s Speaking Engagements and the Spread of Black Power Ideology, 1966-67

Ballantyne, K ORCID: 0000-0002-7703-1636 “Smash everything Western civilization has created”: Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture)’s Speaking Engagements and the Spread of Black Power Ideology, 1966-67. Journal of African American History. ISSN 1548-1867 (Accepted)

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Abstract

Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture) was a well-known figure in the civil rights and Black Power movements. As the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Ture's role in the civil rights historiography has traditionally been as an outspoken Black Power activist. This is part of the story, but focusing on the first year or so of Ture's SNCC leadership, a pivotal period of the civil rights movement as well as SNCC, reveals a different side to Ture and the Black Power movement.
Between mid-1966 and June 1967, Ture made dozens of speeches in college auditoriums, churches, community centers, and theaters across the United States and in Puerto Rico. Placing these speeches in the wider context of the civil rights movement demonstrates the continuity of anti-Vietnam activism and Ture's clarion call for more students (Black and white) to organize and act.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Research Centre for Modern and Contemporary History (REMCH); 2103 Historical Studies
Subjects:	E History America > E11 America (General) E History America > E151 United States (General) H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races H Social Sciences > HX Socialism. Communism. Anarchism
Divisions:	Humanities and Social Science
Publisher:	The University of Chicago Press
Date of acceptance:	11 May 2026
Date Deposited:	19 Oct 2026 09:18
Last Modified:	19 Oct 2026 09:18
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/29691

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