Black Panther button Stokely Carmichael Born in Trinidad and Tobago and educated at Howard University, Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) joined the civil rights movement as a teenager. He was a Freedom Rider who spent 42 days in Mississippi’s Parchman prison. Afterwards he joined SNCC and helped register voters in Alabama. He became chairmen of SNCC in 1966 but left a year later to join the Black Panther Party. A compelling speaker and writer, Carmichael came to represent an aggressive, confrontational, and even violent approach to African American liberation.