Kwame Ture

Biography

Trinidadian Leaders

Date of Birth (DOB): 6/29/41
Died: 9/15/98
From: Trinidad and Tobago
Best Known for: Black Power freedom fighter born Stokely Carmichael

Bio: Kwame Ture was born Stokely Carmichael on June 29, 1941 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, the son of Adolphus and Mabel Carmichael. He immigrated to the United States in 1952 with his family and settled in New York. He graduated from the academically elite Bronx High School of Science in 1960, attend Howard University earning a Bachelor of Science Degree in Philosophy in 1964.

It was while in Washington that Stokely became deeply involved in the "Freedom Rides," "Sit-Ins," and other demonstrations to challenge segregation. He participated with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG) later joining the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was elected its National Chairman in June 1966. While in Greenville, Mississippi, he along with his friend and colleague Willie Ricks, rallied the cry "Black Power" which became the most popular slogan of the Civil Rights era. In 1967, he coauthored with Charles V. Hamilton, Black Power, the Politics of Liberation in America. He became the Prime Minister of the Black Panthers, and later moved to Guinea, West Africa after becoming disenchanted with the Panthers.

While residing in Africa, Stokely Carmichael changed his name to "Kwame Ture" to honor Kwame Nkrumah, who led Ghana to independence from Britain, and, Sekou Toure, who was President of Guinea and his mentor. For more than 30 years, Ture led the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party and devoted the rest of his life to Pan Africanism, a movement to uproot the inequities of racism for people of African descent and to develop an economic and cultural coalition among the African Diaspora.

In 1998, at the age of 57, Kwame Ture died from complications of prostate cancer. To the end he answered the telephone, "ready for the revolution." His marriage to Miriam Makeba and Guinean physician Marlyatou Barry ended in divorce. He has one son, Bokar, who resides in the United States.

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