Kwame Ture, the founder of the Black Power Movement was born Stokely Carmichael in Port of Spain, Trinidad. ⁣
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Yep you read that right – he’s Trinidadian. But you probably already knew that once you saw his name on my page. I’m so transparent now. ⁣
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He was the Honorary Prime Minister of the Black Panther Party and a leader of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP).⁣
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But before all of that he was just a boy. A boy who in High School participated in the boycott of a restaurant that didn’t hire Black people. ⁣
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He did his undergrad degree at Howard University, a historically Black college, and in his first year there he became a Freedom Rider. ⁣
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Freedom Riders organised to de-segregate interstate buses, trains and restaurants. They did this by buying tickets, boarding and sitting in “white” sections. He was arrested so many times he lost count. ⁣
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He turned down a full graduate scholarship to Harvard and, following in the footsteps of Malcolm X, became one of the most popular Black leaders of the 1960s. ⁣
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He had to flee to Africa in 1968 because the director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, identified him as a threat of becoming “America’s next Black messiah” and targeted him for personal destruction. He moved to Ghana and then to Guinea adopting the moniker Kwame Ture. ⁣
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As a final interesting fact: He’s credited with coining the phrase “institutional racism” still in use today. ⁣