Kwame Ture, formerly Stokely Carmichael, speaks at a press conference in Mississippi in 1966. Source: Wikimedia Commons
History celebrates those who fight for freedom, but rarely acknowledges those who dare to define what freedom should look like on their own terms. Stokely Carmichael was one of those visionaries who refused to accept anyone else’s definition of liberation.
At 19, Carmichael was the youngest Freedom Rider in 1961, spending 53 days in Mississippi’s notorious Parchman Penitentiary. He became a grassroots organizer in the Mississippi Delta and Alabama’s Black Belt, where he helped create the Lowndes County Freedom Organization in one of the poorest and most violently racist counties in the nation, eventually becoming the SNCC chairman in 1966. There, he popularized the phrase “Black Power” during the Meredith March Against Fear in Mississippi and, in doing so, electrified a generation that was tired of waiting for dignity. Black Power meant self-determination, political and economic control, and the right to define one’s own liberation. It meant building institutions that served Black communities rather than begging for integration into systems built on their exclusion.
His vision extended beyond American borders. After leaving SNCC, he became honorary prime minister of the Black Panther Party before moving to Guinea and changing his name to Kwame Ture in honor of pan-African leaders Kwame Nkrumah and Sékou Touré. He spent the rest of his life working for global Black liberation through the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party, connecting struggles across continents.
The financial toll of recent immigration enforcement is hitting Minneapolis families hard. Parents are missing paychecks because they’re afraid to leave home. Rent is going unpaid. Grocery budgets are stretched beyond breaking. Local businesses are struggling as customers stay away. The economic ripple effects touch everyone in our community.
Support the Rapid Response Fund
This is exactly when we must show up for each other. Throughout our neighborhoods, people are stepping forward to help however they can. At Pillsbury United Communities, we created the Rapid Response Fund to turn that solidarity into concrete support. The fund provides immediate relief for families facing eviction, hunger, or utility shutoffs. It’s our way of ensuring that economic hardship doesn’t have to mean falling through the cracks.
Carmichael’s message resonates now more than ever. True support means building power and creating systems of care that serve our communities’ real needs. It means taking collective action to ensure no one is left behind.
Your donation to the Rapid Response Fund builds that power. It ensures that a family can keep the lights on this month. It means a parent can feed their children. It means our neighbors have the resources they need to weather this storm together.
Stokely Carmichael showed us that freedom is something you build, not something you beg for. We honor his legacy by continuing that work with the same determination and vision.
