Stokely Got it Right

One of the advantages of having three hours a day on the road is that I get a chance to listen to a lot of audio books. I believe over the last year, I probably consumed well over a dozen or more audio books. But none is more time relevant than the one I just finished listening to by Stokely Carmichael: Black Power. It’s a nearly 60-minute speech he gave on October 29, 1966, at UC Berkeley. It is one of the most poignant speeches that he made, and probably one of the most impactful, because it echoes forward nearly sixty years later as if it were being spoken today.

Hearing it for the first time all the way through is even more relevant when I look at where we are after the Supreme Court ruling on Louisiana v. Callais recently handed down on gerrymandering and that the Constitution is “color blind.” When we talk about state’s rights and all the things that came out of reconstruction, the voting rights act was based on all the disparities between allowing Blacks and other minorities and their inability to exercise their political freedoms. You have to look back at what happened after reconstruction and accept that there’s always been this push/pull, give and take, or more taken than given when it comes to political awareness and political strength within this country. But there’s one thing that Stokely said that may have been missed or just never amplified. He said something to the effect that racism is not our (Black people’s) problem. It’s a white problem and the role white activists should play in solving this problem.

He asks, what is the role of white activists? Stokely says that white activists come into Black communities and get hand in hand with Blacks and they’re going to help Blacks with their situation, as if we’re the problem. I think he got it right when he said that, no, Blacks are in the situations they’re in because if the Constitution did what it claimed to do, there would be no problem. If whites didn’t discriminate against Blacks for housing or services or anything like that, there would be no problem. So, one of the arguments he makes is that what white activists need to do is clean up their own house. If they clean up the white community, clean up the racism, clean up the need to gerrymandering districts so that minority votes are nullified, then maybe things would be better all the way around for everybody.

I had never heard white activism put on its head like that. Over the years, pictures of whites and Blacks hand in hand, arm in arm (implying “we’re with you, we understand your plight”) have been put before us as inspiration that things are changing. There is a certain amount of cynicism about that. Stokely’s assertion is that if you understand our plight, then why don’t you help by cleaning up your house first. The first order of personal responsibility is to fix your own house before you fix anybody else’s, right? If your house is broken, fix it, then go help those outside of your house. That’s the same message they tell you on an airplane; you can’t save anybody else until you put your mask on first. So, from that concept, the speech is very, very impactful. Very important.

So, I look at today and ask, okay, where are the white activists in this modern time? What are they doing within their communities to change things? What are they doing to influence their own? If they correct some of the things within their house, everybody wins. Everybody moves forward. Let’s start with cleaning up the White House and go from there.

Listen to or read the entire speech for yourself at American Rhetoric – Top 100 Speeches: Stokely Carmichael Black Power Address at UC Berkeley.

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