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Stokley Carmichael (Kwame Toure’),civil rights activist, was born in Trinidad on in 1941.

Born in Trinidad, Carmichael formed his political beliefs early, attending Howard University despite scholarships offered by white universities. After graduating in 1964, he began work on voter registration in Mississippi with the (SNCC) Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which he would later lead.

Stokley Carmichael’s activities and those of other volunteers in Mississippi, led to the formation of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, a forerunner of the Black Panther Party. He was one of the first people to publicly use the now famous “Black Power” phrase during James Meredith’s Freedom March in Mississippi. In 1973, he and his then wife, South African singer Miriam Makeba, become citizens of the east African country of Uganda. He became known as Kwame Ture after his abandonment of the nonviolent movement and to the self-defense/liberation movement. He supported the liberation of Cuba, a member of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party and a leading figure in the global Pan-Africanist movement at the time of his death in Conakry, Guinea, West Africa, at the age of 57. He struggled two years with cancer.

Stokely Carmichael (born 1941) was a “militant” civil rights activist and stood at the forefront of the “Black Power” movement. He soared to fame by popularizing the phrase “Black Power” and was one of the most powerful and influential leaders in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).