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Who speaks for the Negro? Stokely Carmichael
An Interview with Robert Penn Warren
This Black History Month, we’re going deeper than the typical rehash of firsts and significant achievements throughout Black history. Robert Penn Warren conducted a series of interviews, also captured on audiotape. You can contextualize Black thought leaders by seeing their words and hearing their voices. This interview is with Stokely Carmichael. The link below will take you to the audio segments. Afterward comes a capsule of the interview and the entire text.
“Carmichael describes his early life and education. Carmichael briefly discusses southern literature, including works by William Faulkner, considering whether Faulkner uses negative stereotypes of African Americans to describe black characters in his novels. He also considers whether black writers feel pressure to write a specific type of novel. Carmichael discusses his earliest involvement in the civil rights movement and his first opinions of, and encounters with, student activists in the South. Carmichael describes his choice to attend Howard as sparked by his involvement with civil rights activists in Virginia and Washington, D.C., and he discusses his participation in the first Freedom Ride and the mob violence and arrest he encountered during that event. Carmichael describes his interactions with several white jailers…
