Stokely Carmichael was a Trinidadian-American Civil Rights advocate in the mid-twentieth century. Carmichael began participating in civil rights advocacy by participating in sit-ins in Virginia and South Carolina. In 1961, he became one of the first seven Freedom Riders, taking a bus tour of the south to protest segregated highway facilities. In 1964, Carmichael joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, to help register black voters. By 1966 he was the chairman of SNCC. Shortly afterwards he became dissatisfied with nonviolent protest. He coined the term “black power” and became prime minister of the Black Panthers. He devoted his life to black separatism, and in 1969 he left the country to live in Guinea. Throughout the rest of his life he remained a staunch supporter of black separatism and pan-Africanism.
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