Stokely Carmichael

What We Want
The New York Review of Books, (September 22, 1966), excerpts.

The Two-Sided Reality

ONE OF THE TRAGEDIES of the struggle against racism is that up to now there has been no
national organization which could speak to the growing militancy of young black people in
the urban ghetto. There has been only a civil rights movement whose tone of voice was
adapted to an audience of liberal whites. It served as a sort of buffer zone between them
and angry young blacks. None of its so-called leaders could go into a rioting community and
be listened to…. Each time the people in those cities saw Martin Luther King get slapped
they became angry; when they saw four little black girls bombed to death, they were
angrier; and when nothing happened, they were steaming. We had nothing to offer that
they could see, except to go out and be beaten again. We helped to build their frustration.

…. We cannot be expected any longer to march and have our heads broken in order to say
to whites: come on, you're nice guys. For you are not nice guys. We have found you out.

An organization which claims to speak for the needs of a community – as does the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee [SNCC] – must speak in the tone of that community,
not as somebody else's buffer zone. This is the significance of black power as a slogan. For
once, black people are going to use the words they want to use – not just the words whites
want to hear. And they will do this no matter how often the press tries to stop the use of the
slogan by equating it with racism or separatism.

An organization which claims to be working for the needs of a community – as SNCC does –
must work to provide the community with a position of strength from which to make its
voice heard. This is the significance of black power beyond the slogan.

BLACK POWER can be clearly defined for those who do not attach the fears of white
America to their questions about it. We should begin with the basic fact that black
Americans have two problems: they are poor and they are black. All other problems arise
from this two-sided reality: lack of education, the so-called apathy of black men. Any
program to end racism must address itself to that double reality.

SNCC's Historical Experience

ALMOST FROM ITS BEGINNING, SNCC sought to address itself to both conditions with a
program aimed at winning political power for impoverished Southern blacks. We had to
begin with politics because black Americans are propertlyless people in a country where
property is valued above all. We had to work for power, because this country does not
function by morality, love, and nonviolence, but by power. Thus we determined to win
political power with the idea of moving on from there into activity that would have
economic effects. With power, the masses could make or participate in making the
decisions which govern their destinies, and thus create basic change in their day-to-day
lives.

But if political power seemed to be the key to self-determination, it was also obvious that
the key had been thrown down a deep well many years earlier. Disenfranchisement,
maintained by racist terror, made it impossible to talk about organizing for political power
in 1960. The right to vote had to be won, and SNCC workers devoted their energies to this
from 1961 to 1965. They set up voter registration drives in the Deep South. They created
pressure for the vote by holding mock elections in Mississippi in 1963 and by helping to
establish the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) in 1964. That struggle was
eased, though not won, with the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. SNCC workers could
then address themselves to the question: “Who can we vote for, to have our needs met –
how do we make our vote meaningful?”

SNCC had already gone to Atlantic City for recognition of the MFDP by the Democratic
convention and been rejected; it had gone with the MFDP to Washington for recognition by
Congress and been rejected….

Then, in Alabama, the opportunity came to see how blacks could be organized on an
independent party basis. An unusual Alabama law provides that any group of citizens can
nominate candidates for county office, and, if they win 20% of the vote, may be recognized
as a county political party. The same then applies on a state level. SNCC went to organize in
several counties…. On May 3, five new county “freedom organizations” convened and
nominated candidates for the offices of sheriff, tax assessor, members of the school boards.
These men and women are up for election in November – if they live until then. Their ballot
symbol is the black panther: a bold, beautiful animal representing the strength and dignity
of black demands today. A man needs a black panther on his side when he and his family
must endure – as hundreds of Alabamans have endured – loss of job, eviction, starvation
and sometimes death for political activity. He may also need a gun and SNCC reaffirms the
right of black men everywhere to defend themselves when threatened or attacked. As for
initiating the use of violence, we hope that such programs as ours will make that
unnecessary; but it is not for us to tell black communities whether they can or cannot use
any particular form of action to resolve their problems. Responsibility for the use of
violence by black men, whether in self-defense or initiated by them, lies with the white
community.
How to Make Votes Meaningful
THIS IS THE SPECIFIC HISTORICAL experience from which SNCC's call for “black power”
emerged on the Mississippi march last July. But the concept of “black power” is not a recent
or isolated phenomenon: It has grown out of the ferment of agitation and activity by
different people and organizations in many black communities over the years…. Where
Negroes lack a majority, black power means proper representation and sharing of control.
It means the creation of power bases from which black people can work to change state-
wide or nation-wide patterns of oppression through pressure from strength – instead of
weakness. Politically, black power means what it has always meant to SNCC: the coming-
together of black people to elect representatives and to force those representatives to
speak to their needs….

The creation of a national “black panther party” must come about; it will take time to build,
and it is much too early to predict its success…. Without knowing all the answers, it can
address itself to the basic problem of poverty….

Ultimately, the economic foundations of this country must be shaken if black people are to
control their lives. The colonies of the U.S. – and this includes the black ghettos within its
borders, north and south – must be liberated. For a century, this nation has been like an
octopus of exploitation, its tentacles stretching from Mississippi and Harlem, to South
America, the Middle East, southern Africa, and Vietnam; the form of exploitation varies
from area to area but the essential result has been the same – a powerful few have been
maintained and enriched at the expense of the poor and voiceless colored masses. This
pattern must be broken. As its grip loosens here and there around the world the hopes of
black Americans become more realistic. For racism to die, a totally different America must
be born.

Integration and Poverty

THIS IS WHAT THE WHITE SOCIETY does not wish to face; this is why that society prefers
to talk about integration. But integration speaks not at all to the problem of poverty, only to
the problem of blackness. Integration today means the man who “makes it,” leaving his
black brothers behind in the ghetto as fast as his new sports car will take him….

Integration, moreover, speaks to the problem of blackness in a despicable way. As a goal, it

has been based on complete acceptance of the fact that in order to have a decent house or
education, blacks must move into a white neighborhood or send their children to a white
school. This reinforces, among both black and white, the idea that “white” is automatically
better and “black” is by definition inferior. This is why integration is a subterfuge for the
maintenance of white supremacy. It allows the nation to focus on a handful of Southern
children who get into white schools, at great price, and to ignore the 94% who are left
behind in unimproved all-black schools. Such situations will not change until black people
have more power – to control their own school boards, in this case…. Then integration
becomes relevant.

The White Problem

TO MOST WHITES, black power seems to mean that the Mau Mau are coming to the
suburbs at night. The Mau Mau are coming, and whites must stop them. Articles appear
about plots to “get whitey,” creating an atmosphere in which “law and order must be
maintained.” Once again, responsibility is shifted from the oppressor to the oppressed…. If
they are liberals, they complain, “ What about me? – don't you want my help any more?” …
Or they accuse us of “polarizing the races” by our calls for black unity, when the true
responsibility for polarization lies with whites who will not accept their responsibility as
the majority power for making Democratic process work.

White America will not face the problem of color, the reality of it. The well-intended say:
“We're all human, everybody is really decent, we must forget color.” But color cannot be
“forgotten” until its weight is recognized and dealt with…. No one ever talked about “white
power” because power in this country is white…. The furor over that black panther reveals
the problems that white America has with color and sex; the furor over “black power”
reveals how deep racism runs and the great fear which is attached to it….

From birth, black people are told a set of lies about themselves. We are told that we are lazy
– yet I drive through the Delta area in Mississippi and watch black people picking cotton in
the hot sun for 14 hours. We are told, “If you work hard, you'll succeed” – but if that were
true, black people would own this country. We are oppressed because we are black – not
because we are ignorant, not because we are lazy, not because we're stupid (and got good
rhythm), but because we're black.

I remember that when I was a boy, I used to go to see Tarzan movies on Saturday. White
Tarzan used to beat up the black natives. I would sit there yelling, “Kill the beasts, kill the
savages, kill 'em!” I was saying: Kill me. It was as if a Jewish boy watched Nazis taking Jews
off to concentration camps and cheering them on. Today, I want the chief to beat hell out of
Tarzan and send him back to Europe. But it takes time to become free of the lies and their
shaming effect on black minds. It takes time to reject the most important lie: that black
people inherently can't do the same things white people can do, unless white people help
them.

The need for psychological equality is the reason why SNCC today believes that blacks must
organize in the black community. Only black people can convey the revolutionary idea that
black people are able to do things themselves. Only they can help create in the community
an aroused and continuing black consciousness that will provide the basis for political
strength…. This is one reason Africa has such importance: The reality of black men ruling
their own nations gives blacks everywhere a sense of possibility, of power, which they do
not now have.

What White Friends Can Do

THIS DOES NOT MEAN we don't welcome help, or friends. But we want the right to decide
whether anyone is, in fact, our friend…. We will not be told whom we should choose as
allies…. We cannot have the oppressors telling the oppressed how to rid themselves of the
oppressor.

…. One of the most disturbing things about almost all white supporters of the movement
has been that they are afraid to go into their own communities – which is where the racism
exists – and work to get rid of it. They want to run from Berkeley to tell us what to do in
Mississippi; let them look instead at Berkeley. They admonish blacks to be nonviolent; let
them preach nonviolence in the white community…. There is a vital job to be done among
poor whites. We hope to see, eventually, a coalition between poor blacks and poor whites.
That is the only coalition which seems acceptable to us, and we see such a coalition as the
major internal instrument of change in American society. SNCC has tried several times to
organize poor whites…. [But t]he main responsibility for it falls upon whites….

A Society Built on Human Rights

BLACK PEOPLE DO NOT want to “take over” this country. They don't want to “get whitey;”
they just want to get him off their backs, as the saying goes…. Blacks want to be in his
place, yes, but not in order to terrorize and lynch and starve him. They want to be in his
place because that is where a decent life can be had.

But our vision is not merely of a society in which all black men have enough to buy the
good things of life. When we urge that black money go into black pockets, we mean the
communal pocket. We want to see money go back into the community and used to benefit
it. We want to see the cooperative concept applied in business and banking…. The society
we seek to build among black people, then, is not a capitalist one. It is a society in which the
spirit of community and humanistic love prevail…. The love we seek to encourage is within
the black community, the only American community where men call each other “brother”
when they meet. We can build a community of love only where we have the ability and
power to do so: among blacks.

As for white America, perhaps it can stop crying out against “black supremacy,” “black
nationalism,” “racism in reverse,” and begin facing reality. The reality is that this nation,
from top to bottom, is racist; that racism is not primarily a problem of “human relations”
but of an exploitation maintained – either actively or through silence – by the society as a
whole. Camus and Sartre have asked, can a man condemn himself? Can whites, particularly
liberal whites, condemn themselves? Can they stop blaming us, and blame their own
system? Are they capable of the shame which might become a revolutionary emotion?

We have found that they usually cannot condemn themselves, and so we have done it. But
the rebuilding of this society, if at all possible, is basically the responsibility of whites – not
blacks. We don't fight to save the present society, in Vietnam or anywhere else. We are just
going to work, in the way we see fit, and on goals we define, not for civil rights but for all
our human rights.