The Black Power Mixtape 1967-19752011

Talib Kweli:
Okay. The first thing that crossed my mind with Stokley is , um... y'know he has... he has so much power and passion and fire inside of him. And he understood what his job was very early. And he understood why, even though the things he was saying were in direct opposition to the philosophy of Dr. King; he understood that Dr. King was still important. He understood the compassion. Umm... what struck me though as interesting that... from his vantage point, non-violence and passive resistance was a non-option. It wasn't an option at all. Now, in 2010, you can see how King and all of them who were influenced by Ghandi; how it did work, you know? The passive resistance of the bus boycott... it did work. But it would have never worked without people like Stokley Carmichael on the other side of him. They studied the passive resistance. He studied power and what power meant. He was the first one to really talk about black power. But, I mean, that's exactly what was missing from the equation; the power. And he was powerful just from... the speaking, and he wasn't even like the Panthers. You know, the Panthers were very influenced by him. But, it's not like he was in the street with some guns, you know?