Stokely Carmichael

Minoru Aoki, artist

born 1936

Stokely Carmichael, 1967

Portfolio/Series title: “The Brilliancy of Black: Which color in the spectrum is being reestablished at this moment by one Stokely Carmichael; whose brushwork, Whitey baby, you better watch,” published in Esquire magazine, January 1967

Where object was made: Harlem, New York, New York, United States

Material/technique: gelatin silver print; board

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 32 x 53.5 cm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 12 5/8 x 21 1/16 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 24 x 32 in

Credit line: Gift of Esquire, Inc.

Accession number: 1980.0478

Not on display

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Politics, Race, Celebrity: Photographs from the Esquire Collection

When paired with Minoru Aoki’s photograph, Bernard Weinraub’s article about Stokely Carmichael presents the activist as calm, credible, and charismatic. Carmichael’s vision and methods for empowering African Americans were distinct from other Civil Rights Movement leaders, such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Although Carmichael’s Black Power philosophy was compelling for many Americans, it was also considered controversial by many others.
As quoted in Weinraub’s article, Carmichael concluded a speech by saying: “We must, we must take over and control our resources and our programs. And if we don’t, the Black people will wake up again tomorrow morning, still poor, still Black, and still singing ‘We Shall Overcome.’”

Brosseau Center for Learning: In Conversation with the 2016 KU Common Book

“Black power is the dungeon-side view of Monticello―which is to say, the view taken in struggle. And black power births a kind of understanding that illuminates all the galaxies in their truest colors…We have made something down here. We have taken the one-drop rules of Dreamers and flipped them. They made us into a race. We made ourselves into a people.” ("Between the World and Me," p. 149)