SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) National Chairman Stokely Carmichael giving a passionate speech at a podium, March 1977

1977

SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) National Chairman Stokely Carmichael giving a passionate speech at a podium, March 1977, 1977. Barney Sellers (American, 1926–2012). Gelatin silver print, ferrotyped; image: 15.9 x 12.1 cm (6 1/4 x 4 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, James Parmelee Fund 2021.174.a In his portrait of Kwame Ture (born Stokely Carmichael, 1941–1998), Sellers portrays the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee as a persuasive and dramatic orator. By combining images from two different moments of the speech, Sellers shows us the varied moods of two different moments in the speech and enhances the viewer’s sense of being present at the event. In the 1960s, Stokely Carmichael was targeted by a covert FBI program aimed at discrediting Black activists.