Trinidad and Tobago Honors Kwame Ture on Birth Anniversary

Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago: The National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago remembered Kwame Ture on his birth anniversary on June 29. Kwame Ture, the prominent civil rights activist, writer and Pan-Africanist, was first credited with using the phrase “Black Power”, as per the update.

Ture was born Stokely Carmichael in Port of Spain on June 29 1941. As a child, his parents migrated to the US, leaving him and his sisters in the care of their grandmother at the family home on 54 Oxford Street. This location is now recognised by the National Trust of Trinidad and Tobago as a Heritage Site (called The Home of Kwame Ture).

At age 11, Ture was reunited with his parents in the US, where they encountered many social barriers living as Black immigrants in the Jim Crow era. Jim Crow laws – designed to enforce racial and economic segregation – were implemented in many US states until the late 1960s.

Ture’s early activism was inspired by the bravery of young people protesting segregated service at sit-in lunch counters in the American South.

In 1960, he enrolled in Howard University and joined the Freedom Riders of the Congress of Racial Equality, with whom he challenged the segregated bus services in the South and faced violence, arrests and jail time for protesting.

As per the update, after graduating from Howard with a philosophy degree, Ture became involved in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC; popularly pronounced “snick”), of which he was eventually appointed the chairman in 1966. SNCC was known for their courageous and strategic approaches to challenging the laws of racial segregation.

The update by the National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago, Ture chose a black panther for the organisation’s logo—a symbol that later inspired and was adopted by the Black Panther Party. For some time, Ture served as the Honorary Prime Minister of the Black Panther Party.