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Why Kwame Ture Hated Political Reactionaries And Why Bill Clinton Hated Him

Why Kwame Ture Hated Political Reactionaries And Why Bill Clinton Hated Him

ture

Civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael is seen speaking at the University of California, Nov. 1966. (AP Photo)

Kwame Ture was one of the most prominent and outspoken organizers in the civil rights movement and the global pan-African movement. Born in Trinidad, Ture, whose birth name was Stokely Carmichael, came with his family to the U.S. when he was 11. He became an activist as a teenager, while attending the Bronx High School of Science.

Ture was very direct in his belief in what would truly foster change for Black people in America. He was pro-organizing over mobilization. He was pro-revolutionary and anti-reformist.

Ture hated political reactionaries, and it may be why Bill Clinton seems to hate him.

In political science, a reactionary or a reactionist is a person who holds political views that favor a return to the status quo.

Ture, who at one point worked with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, is best known for popularizing the slogan “Black Power.” He changed his name to Kwame Ture in 1968, in honor of his friends and political allies, Pan-African leaders Sekou Touré and Kwame Nkrumah, Black Past reported. In 1969, Ture moved permanently in Conakry, Guinea, where he died of prostate cancer in 1998.

Ture made it clear what side of the movement he was on.

He once said, “We must make clear distinctions between mobilizers and organizers. To be an organizer you must be a mobilizer, but being a mobilizer does not make you an organizer. Much confusion is to be found here. Malcolm X was a great mobilizer. He was a great organizer. Martin Luther King was a great mobilizer. He was not a great organizer. These facts can be easily seen from King and Malcolm. When Malcolm went to a place he left a mosque. When King went to demonstrations, he broke down segregation and he moved on.”

During one speech, he laid out the difference between mobilization and organization. Part of the speech was posted on Facebook on the page KuundaTube under an episode entitled “Honorable Kwame Ture Breaks Down The Differences Between Mobilizing and Organizing.”

“One of the characteristics of mobilization is that it is temporary…Organization is permanent and eternal. Clear differences must be made,” Ture said. He said that mobilization is used to sway people but not to effect change.

He spoke about revolution versus reform as well. YouTube channel AfroMarxist posted a clip of one speech in which he explained the distinction between the two. The posting is entitled “Kwame Ture on Revolution and Reform.”

According to Ture, people who believe in reform just look to make changes to the foundation of a government. “Reform the system…they are trying to make it look different but keeping the same rotten foundation. Reformists make you think things are being changed,” he said. “A revolutionary looks at the foundation and says…it must be torn up and new one must be put in its place.”

He added, “I’m a revolutionary, not a reformist. I want the American system destroyed. It has to be destroyed and replaced.”

It seemed to be Ture’s outspoken bluntness about the American system that former President Bill Clinton took offense at.

The funeral for civil rights icon John Lewis  on July 30, 2020, was supposed to honor the man, his work in Congress and the changes he pushed forward through his career. But Clinton used the event to chastise another activist, Ture. It has some wondering, who invited Clinton to Lewis’s funeral.

Clinton spoke about Lewis’s involvement in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and how Lewis lost the job as leader of SNCC to Stokely Carmichael. “It was a pretty good job for a guy that young and from Troy, Alabama,” Clinton said. “It must have been painful to lose, but he showed as a young man there are some things that you just cannot do to hang on to a position because if you do, then, you won’t be who you are anymore. And I say there were two or three years there, where the movement went a little too far towards Stokely, but in the end, John Lewis prevailed.”

Civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael is seen speaking at the University of California, Nov. 1966. (AP Photo)