Donald Sterling and Cliven Bundy notwithstanding, the past year has seen us engaged in a celebration of the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the March on Washington and Freedom Summer. All seminal events in the amazing history of the Civil Rights movement. But what we sometimes forget is that the movement itself, mostly because of its scope and inclusiveness, started a bigger revolution. One that took up opposition to Vietnam, the fight for social and economic justice and the movement beyond nonviolence, for more than just public accommodation, but the struggle for real political, social and economic power.
Present at the creation of that effort was Stokely Carmichael. He was a bridge between the nonviolence of Dr. King, the anger of Malcolm X and the urban struggle for civil rights led by the Black Panthers.
Carmichael has been somewhat forgotten in the pantheon of leaders from the period, that is until Peniel Joseph's new biography, Stokely: A Life
My conversation with Peniel Joseph:
