Kwame Ture lectures to a Robert Purcell Community Center audience on April 19. His talk was titled "28 Years After the Takeover: Developing a National Black Student Agenda." Denise Weldon/University Photography
Kwame Ture, formerly Stokely Carmichael, a leading figure of the 1960s Black Power Movement, gave a lecture to the Cornell community last Saturday afternoon in a packed Robert Purcell Community Center.
Sponsored by the Africana Student Association, in conjunction with Ujamaa Residential College, Black Students United and several other campus groups, Ture's lecture, titled "28 Years After the Takeover: Developing a National Black Student Agenda," came at the conclusion of the 28th anniversary commemoration of the Willard Straight Hall takeover.
Agyei Tyehimba, president of the Africana Student Association and one of the forces behind the organization of the commemoration, talked about the significance of the famous April 1969 protest -- in which African-American students occupied the Cornell student union for 36 hours -- and then he introduced the speaker.
"We need to reawaken black student activism. Make it better, tighter, because wherever we go, we have to struggle," Tyehimba told the audience.
Accompanied by an entourage that included close family members and an associate from Guinea, West Africa, Ture was welcomed to the podium as a distinguished guest.
First gaining prominence as a leader of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and then of the Black Panthers, Ture used his experience in student activism and protest to describe to audience members how the events of the sixties relate to those of today.
"We need to move from mobilization to organization," he told the crowd. "In the sixties, we were not even organized, we were mobilized. Just think what will happen when we organize a rebellion. We'll move from an area of influence -- to power."
He spoke continually about the importance of organization, deeming it vital for effective leadership, cohesive group thinking and progress.
"The power comes from the organized masses. Organization is the only solution, the only answer," he said. "No people will ever be free unless they are consciously organized."
Ture, a committed socialist, also talked about capitalism and key issues of the global African struggle.
"Capitalism fools people into thinking they're thinking and isolates them from primary sources," Ture said. "In slavery you are forced to labor; in a capitalist system you are forced to sell your labor to capitalism."
A Pan-Africanist, he espouses the unification of all African peoples under one nation. Specifically he predicts that Africa will become the first unified continent. Ture talked about what he described as the natural process of continental unity and how this unification process was disrupted by European "intervention" and other outside forces.
"Africa is the richest continent on the Earth, and it should be the most powerful continent on Earth," he argued.
Ture was given several standing ovations during his lecture, which ran just over two hours.
"He made it clear that you must be a part of the struggle as an African," said Chris Ellam '97. "If you're not for it, then you're against it."
At the conclusion of the lecture, Ture, who is fighting cancer, was given a tribute by students in the Africana Studies and Research Center, family members and Professor James Turner, director of the Africana Center, and he was presented with a plaque for his endless commitment and dedication to his African brothers and sisters.