Ready for Revolution : The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture)

by Stokely Carmichael; Ekwueme Michael Thelwell; John Edgar Wideman

• ISBN13: 9780684850030
• ISBN10: 0684850036
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-11-04
• Publisher: Scribner

Summary

By any measure, Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) fundamentally altered the course of history. Published at the fifth anniversary of Carmichael's death, this long-awaited autobiography fills a yawning gap in the American historical record as it chronicle

Author Biography

Stokely Carmichael died in Guinea in 1998. Head of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, he was also honorary prime minister of the Black Panther Party and a bestselling author. Ekwueme Michael Thelwell, professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is the author of the classic novel The Harder They Come and numerous influential articles on politics and literature.

Table of Contents

Collaborator's Note	1	(4)
Introduction	5	(6)
I. Oriki: Ancestors and Roots	11	(11)
II. The House at the Forty-Two Steps	22	(22)
III. A Tale of Two Cities	44	(16)
IV. "A Better Neighborhood"	60	(23)
V. Bronx Science: Young Manhood	83	(27)
VI. Howard University: Everything and Its Opposite	110	(26)
VII. NAG and the Birth of SNCL	136	(19)
VIII. Nonviolence-Apprenticeship in Struggle	155	(23)
IX. The Great Leap Forward: The Freedom Rides	178	(38)
X. Nashville: A New Direction	216	(25)
XI. To School or Not to School	241	(9)
XII. The Hearts and Minds of the Student Body	250	(27)
XIII. Mississippi (1961-65): Going Home	277	(20)
XIV. A Band of Brothers, a Circle of Trust	297	(26)
XV. Of Marches, Coalitions, Dreams, and Ambulance Chasing	323	(26)
XVI. Summer '64: Ten Dollars a Day and All the Sex You Can Handle	349	(33)
XVII. They Still Didn't Get It	382	(32)
XVIII. The Unforeseen Pitfalls of "Success" American Style	414	(25)
XIX. Selma: Crisis, Chaos, Opportunity	439	(18)
XX. Lowndes County: The Roar of the Panther	457	(27)
XXI. "Magnified, Scrutinized, Criticized ..."	484	(17)
XXII. "We Gotta Make This Our Mississippi"	501	(19)
XXIII. Black Power and Its Consequences	520	(44)
XXIV. Around the World in Eighty Days	564	(43)
XXV Mother Africa and Her Suffering Children	607	(32)
XXVI. In That 01' Brier Patch	639	(41)
XXVII. Conakry, 1968: Home to Africa	680	(48)
XXVIII. Cancer Brings Out the Best in People	728	(24)
XXIX. A Struggle on Two Fronts	752	(31)
Postscript	783	(2)
Afterword: In the Tradition	785	(8)
Acknowledgments	793	(4)
Index	797

Excerpts

Chapter IV: "A Better Neighborhood" My father's announcement took us children by surprise. My mother was part of the announcing, standing next to my father, her face a study in pride and determination. Any apprehension in her expression was held firmly in check beneath the weight of the first two.My father explained to us that even before we'd arrived from Trinidad, he had been searching everywhere for a better home for us. Now, with the help of the Lord and our good mother, he had found what he was looking for. We would be moving in about two weeks, for our parents had bought us a house. "Praise the Lord," Mummy Olga sighed audibly. "Praise His holy name."It would be a better neighborhood, my mom said. We would have more living space. The streets would be quieter, less crowded, and the children would have more freedom. It was close to a school. My mother really emphasized that we would be moving to a "good neighborhood." I do not recall if she mentioned that it would be a white neighborhood, but it was.The house was farther up in the Bronx, on Amethyst Street, in the Morris Park/White Plains Road area, not far from the Bronx Zoo. We would discover that the neighborhood was heavily Italian with a strong admixture of Irish. It was respectable working class, "ethnic," and very, very Catholic. On one side it bordered Pelham Parkway, across which was a predominantly Jewish enclave.Ours would be the first, and for much of my youth, the only African family in that immediate neighborhood.Because we were children, it never occurred to us to wonder why or how my father had been allowed to buy into that block. Nor how, on a single income -- my father's, for our parents were very clear that my mother would stay home and mother us full-time -- they could have scraped together the down payment. Or from what reserves of inner will and determination these two young immigrants had summoned the optimism and courage to take this major first step in pursuit of the American Dream.I do recall the excitement of packing for the move, my sisters' and my gleeful anticipation of the promised space and freedom. How big would our house be? How fancy? Would we have our own rooms? This excitement lasted until we actually saw our new home.It was a dump. I mean, it was a serious, serious dump. In fact, it was the local eyesore, and the reason -- I now understand clearly -- my father had been able to get the house with no visible opposition was because it was, hands down, the worst house on the block. It was so run-down, beat-up, and ill kept that no one wanted it. If that house were a horse, it would have been described as "hard rode and put up wet." A creature in dire need of a little care and nurturing. My dad was the "sucker" the owners had "seen coming" on whom to unload their white elephant. Which is one reason, I'm sure, the race question was overlooked. Who else could have been expected to buy such a wreck?When we first saw it, we children were shocked. We looked around the house and at each other. I mean, even the cramped quarters at Stebbins looked like a mansion compared to what we were moving into. I mean, small, little, squinched-up rooms, dark, sunless interiors, filthy baseboards, a total mess and not at all inviting.But our initial disappointment did not, of course, take into account my father -- his supreme confidence in his skills and resourcefulness. He had indeed spent a long time looking for just such a house. Seeing not what was, but what could be. The neighborhood was quieter, and the house just three houses down from a school, and by the grace of God, sufficiently derelict and decrepit as to be available and affordable. Perfect. The Lord do move in mysterious ways.My father had cased the joint purposefully and assured himself that the foundations were solid enough to afford him a base on which to build. He'd figured out exactly what he was