And by contributions to your pbs stations from viewers like you. Thank you. You will be under arrest. We dont want anybody to movement the time has come to an end. [ cheers and applause ] you tell those white folks in mississippi that all those scared are dead. Theyre going to deal with the men. [ chanting ] did i just hear carmichael say all the scared are dead with dr. King next to him . Yeah. That was a clip of one of his galvanizing speeches. He was at the front as a freedom writer and the student coordinating committee. He was arrested for his civil rights activities. Carmichaels life is finally the subject of a masterful biography called stokely, a life by Award Winning writer peniel e. Joseph, founding director of the center for study of race and democracy at tufts university. Dr. Joseph, good to have you on the program. Thank you for having me. Let me go back. I suspect the clip which i have seen a few times might be a bit arresting. Thats Strong Language with this person we know as americas peacemaker right next to him. Yeah. Its a great example of king and carmichaels relationship with each other. They are friends in a way they mentor each other during the civil rights movement. They have become a yin and yang when we think about the second half of the struggle. My word, there was this friction, tension between the two of them. They loved each other, respecteded each other. They were friends. There was tension, friction between nonviolence on kings side and the other way on stokelys side. Tell me about that. Stokely carmichael comes from trinidad in 1921. Hes part of the student nonviolent coordinating committee. A young activist arrested 27 times between 1961 and 66. He argues that black people have to have radical political selfdetermination. Hes militantly nonviolent. Over time that will transform. Why . Because of the experiences. He sees young people murdered. Sammy young, jr. , is a young black student murdered in 166. One of his dear friends is a white activist named Jonathan Daniels who is murdered in alabama. That has a transformative effect. He thinks africanamericans have to fight back. Give me a sense of how it comes to being an advocate. You mentioned his birth. How does he come to be the advocate we know as Stokely Carmichael and later as kwami toure. His mother is a huge influence. Shes from trinidad. His father is a carpenter, a hardworking black man. He starts to identify with under dogs. The organizer of the march on washington becomes one of his mentors. He asks somebody who it is. Somebody tells him its rustin and he says, thats who i want to be. Where does the courage come from . When you have this kind of courage and conviction and commitment in this era, stokelys era to say what he was saying where does the brashness come from . I think from his mother. Hes got a panafrican sense of who he s. Hes from the caribbean. The woman hes going to marry, the International South African singer. People like harry belafonte, dr. King, malcolm x, rustin, ella baker. Just somebody with a deep love for poor black people and a deep love for social justice. How much of his past versus the path of king we know so well and well come to whats understood about stokely all these years later but how much of the path he chose versus king had to do with his age. King is only 39 like malcolm. Theyre both dead at 39, young people. Yet king was seen as old, passe, beyond his time. By the black power generation. How much of it has to do with his age. A lot of it. Hes 19 when arrested for the first time in mississippi. June 8 sh 1961. Hes a young man. By the time hes a black power icon, hes 24 in the clip. He goes to africa, london, cuba at 25, 2 years old. Hanging out with dr. King, dr. Benjamin spock, fidel castro. Hes 24, 25, 26 years old. Thats an amazing life. And he becomes the leader of a Youth Movement thats not just black. White, too. People like tom hayden will talk about stokelys influence. Students for a Democratic Society and stokely becomes the leading antiwar protester in the United States antivietnam war protester. In many ways he hopes to push dr. King in the direction of beinger more vocal in his antiwar stance. Stokely takes great delight in that, in fact. He does. They headline an enormous rally in 1967. Thats the most important antiwar rally in the late 1960s. Dr. King is there. Stokely. Benjamin spock and harry bellafonte. In a way stokely might up stage dr. King with eloquence and afterwards in a sprawling new york city apartment stokely is teasing dr. King saying, look, my activism and the things im doing is a reason you are coming out against the war at riverside. Youre being charitable and generous. This audience knows i love dr. King. Im working on a text about him coming out this summer. I regard him as the greatest american this country has produced. Thats my assessment. I will be the first to tell you that stokely got him that day. At the march when you see stokely speak and king speak it was the one day stokely stole the show. Stokely killed it that day. Absolutely. Their deep friendship is connected to the vietnam war protest. Dr. King called up Stokely Carmichael to invite him to ebenezer. Stokely said hes coming and will be in the front rowment stokely is leading for dr. King. Important to remember carmichael loves dr. King deeply and credits dr. King with teaching black people to protest against Racial Injustice without fear. This may sound like an indictment on this generation, even on our generation. If it comes across maybe its deliberate. I was at a dinner party not long ago. We were talking about the fact that our generation, with all due respect, we just dont measure up. Put another way, we are not our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents. Coming to the point you made and what stokely was doing at 23 and 24. The thing was stokely wasnt the only one. No. There are a lot of brothers and sisters we now regard ella baker, diane gnash. The list goes on and on of the young people. King himself was young. Malcolm was young. Look at what we are doing today or not doing today and what they were doing back then. I dont want to demonize our generation. But compare and contrast it for me. I think 50 years later after what the young people did during black power, dr. King, malcolm, ella baker. Things changed and transformed. In a way they did so much to help the Africanamerican Community that racism was defeated. Not all. The new generation had a tough time confronting the challenges that remain. They did heroic work. There is a narrative of a ufdn beginning, middle and end. The middle is dr. Kings activism. The beginning is rosa parks in montgomery. Too many of us bought into that narrative. We dont think about all that remains to be done. How dangerous is that, particularly your point about it ending with the election of barack obama. Hugely dangerous. Dr. King was a huge Freedom Fighter for peace and justice. So was Stokely Carmichael. They didnt want to just elect a president. They were willing to put their lives on the line to speak truth to power. It wasnt about one man. It was millions of black people in the United States and around the world being liberated. Its not exactly how you put it. Youre much more elegant and eloquent in the text. Stokely eventually gives up on america like dubois. He leaves. Tell me why. Two reasons. One there is a pull of africa. He believes in it. This whole idea of a panafrican revolution. Hes pushed out because of the fbi, the white house requests twice weekly reports on this young brother because of his antiwar activism. Hes pushed out of the country and pulled to africa. Many know him as Stokely Carmichael. Perhaps others know him as kwame toure. They are two of his mentors. Those two mentors really he becomes the embodiment of the panafrican revolution and becomes kwame toure. How did stokely or kwame, this brother, this individual view the notion of democracy in america . Oh, gosh. He becomes a vibrant critic of american democracy. He fights for a vision of radical democracy where black sharele croppers are going to lead the country politically. By the time hes kwame he comes to reject the idea of american democracy and feels it was nothing more than hypocrisy. What to your mind and there is a long list. We could do a show on this. You could teach us seminars. Im sure you do at tufts but what are the most misunderstood things all these years later about Stokely Carmichael . One, he wasnt an organizer, an activist. He was just an angry young man. The prophet of black rage. Two, that hes somehow antiwhite. Stoengly has huge multi racial, interracial relationships. Against institutional racism, never against white people. Finally his call for black power somehow disrupted the civil rights movement. It didnt disrupt the movement. It stroke truth to power to what so many millions of young people were feeling. It cast a light on people who were in prison, rights activists and in the international arena. I have just scratched the surface on this text. Carmichael is without question one of the most paul robson is on the list undervalued, misunderstood personalities this country has produced. Peniel joseph is changie for us if we have the courage. Stokely, a life. I highly recommend it for better understanding of this great american. Peniel, thanks for the text. Good to have you on the program. Great to be back. Coming up, Country Singer martina mcbride. Stay with us. Martina mcbride is one of Country Musics most successful stars with 14 grammy nominations to her name. She was named female vocalist of the year 14 times. Her latest cd everlasting shes charting New Territory for her covering classic soul and r b songs like i have been loving you too long and what becomes of the broken hearted. Lets take a look. Because i love you too much baby first of all, honored to have you on the program. Thank you. Delighted that you decided to do this. Tell me why. You know, i have always wanted to make a record like this. I just kind of listened to my little voice, the creative voice that said this is a good thing, you should do this. I just love the music. I have always put songs like this in my show over the years. We covered at last, natural woman, songs like that. Its fun. What about the traditional soul music most resonates with you . For me its about the emotion. Its about the lyric. These songs are so in the moment. Its just conversational, expressing feelings. I think in a way thats a similar thing to Country Music. The lyrics have so much. Country is the best lyrical stuff around. Probably what i love most about Country Music is the lyrical content. Its about real life. How did you decide what to put on here . You picked good stuff. I can only imagine, you have 12 tracks here. You must have started with 250. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We started looking for songs for six, seven months. I worked with a great girl out of new york that helped send me lists of songs. Sometimes i would see a song or hear one and think i dont want to do that song but it would remind me of another song. It was sifting through the treasure trove of music. I really ended up find iing it. Wed sit down at the piano and sing through 20, 25 songs. Certain ones were really natural. Certain ones that werent. We went with the ones that felt natural. I think i though what you mean by thisment when you say it felt natural, what do you mean . Sometimes a song just comes out already sounding like a record, you know . It fits your range, your tone. The melody, phrasing feels natural. You go through tracks, pick the ones that sound and feel natural. At the end you look at what you have. When you look at what you have, what you did what thread do you see running through it . There are a couple of songs about trust and lack of trust. We covered if you dont know me by now and ssuspicious minds. I have been married for years and thats not an issue we deal with. That was on a couple of songs. We did to know him is to love him which is a sweet song. I dont know if there is a theme that runs through it. It deals with different emotions. When youre in front of the audience and you throw in a soul song, how does it fit into your typical play list . Great. When we do natural woman, Everybody Loves that song. I choose songs everybody knows. Thats the thing about this music. These songs, my fans will love this music. Its still me. Singing the songs and hopefully it feels authentic. I hope they like it. Is there a particular reason why now seemed to be the right time . So much of life, much less the music business is about timing. Is there a reason why the time is right for you to put a project like this out now . Not really, no. It just is an artistic decision. Someti sometimes you have to listen to your instincts. I made a record a few years ago called timeless which was country standards. This is sort of in a way not really an answer to that or a continuation to that but the same idea with a different kind of music. Is this where you hoped you would be two decades in or had you not given thought into where to take this thing. You were going with the flow. My career has exceeded expectations. When you get into this business i had a rule of thumb that you if you can have ten great years, thats really amazing. It is. So to have done it for twice this long im very blessed. Whats your sense of the crop of country talent thats out there today . Mmhmm. Well, its an interesting time in Country Music right now for females. It seems like there arent a lot of females on country radio right nowment i think thats cyclical in a way. Itll come back around. That was my follow. I wanted to ask what you thought about the crop and specifically women and why it is that it seems like some of the women are disappearing. Mmhmm. We dont know why that is . I dont know, no. There are some great records. Casey musgrave just won the grammy for her album. Ashley monroe made a great country record. I think there is a theme now in Country Music, sort of a trend thats more about trucks and i dont know. Just a lot of maleoriented subject matter. I think we have a hard time as females finding you know, thats really not i mean, i dont know what i would do with that kind of trend. I couldnt fit in and find music like that. That raises another question. If there is a male oriented country lyric, is there femaleoriented country lyric or is it supposed to just be about life, period is . I think its supposed to be about life. I have always recorded sopgs i love and that resonate with me and i feel will Say Something that somebody is going to own. I want people to say, thats my song. Right. I have never followed a trend. Yeah. Has your choice, to your point earlier that you pick songs you think people will resonate with, has the kind of stuff you do changed to your ear over 20 years . Im talking about the lyrical content of stuff you do. You live life, have different experiences, Different Things resonate with you. Right. Can you hear that when you look back how its changed, the choices you make now . Yeah. I dont know that its changed a lot. I think at certain times in my life there are songs for instance, i recorded in my daughters eyes. Had i not had a daughter i dont know if i could have understood that song. I recorded it when my girls were little. As time goes by you find songs that you can relate to better because you have had the experiences or because youre older or whatever. Does having three daughters change the way you view your work and your career and your calling . It doesnt. No. I think having children, especially daughters, does change the way you view the world. I want the world to be a safer, better, more joyful place for them than it is sometimes. I dont know that it affects my music, my work really. Yeah. The other question is whether or not you think music can still have the kind of impact on our lives the way it used to. Music is a wonderful thing to entertain us. There have been strong periods in history where music, whether youre talking dylan we could run the list. Sure. Where music made a difference. Do you think music has the power to do that these days . I do. The way we consume music is different. Our Attention Spans are shorter. I have noticed with my daughters, rarely do they listen to an entire song. You know, they listen to mom, listen to this song. It will be like half of it. Then they switch to another song. Im like, why dont you listen to the whole song . Does it scare you as an artist . Yeah. I dont think anybody is listening to my whole song. Exactly. Music is so powerful. Lyrics, songs and instrumental music is emotional, powerful. I think that it taps into something no other art form can. As you tour, are you touring just for this project or as you said earlier, weaving this into your play list . Im going to do a whole tour around the album. Bring out a horn section, background vocals. You know, maybe do some moves. There you go. Id pay to see that. Teach me some moves. You dont want that, trust me. You may see me on the front row checking out you and your moves. Im glad you said hornsment you cant do soul without horns. I love it. Horns dont get the respect they deserve. Whats earth, wind fire without horns . Chicago. A lot of great bands. I love the horn section. Glad youre doing that. The new project is called everlasting from martina mcbride. Great soul and r b from this country icon. Congrats. Have a great tour. Thank you. Thats our show for tonight. Thanks for watching. As always, keep the faith. For more information on todays show, visit tavis smiley at pbs. Org. Hi, im tavis smiley. Join me next time for a conversation with ed oneill from modern family and Jennifer Holliday and a performance. Thats next time. See you then. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Experi welcome to Film School Shorts a showcase of the most exciting new talent from across the country. Experience the future of film, next on Film School Shorts. Film School Shorts is made possible by a grant from maurice kanbar, celebrating the vitality and power of the moving image, and by the members of kqed
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