Who popularized the phrase “Black Power” during a 1966 voting-rights march in Mississippi?

Stokely Carmichael popularized the phrase “Black Power” during a 1966 voting-rights march in Mississippi.

Carmichael was a prominent organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. On June 16, 1966, after being arrested during the March Against Fear, he addressed supporters in Greenwood, Mississippi, and repeatedly called for “Black Power.”

The march had begun after James Meredith was shot while attempting to walk from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi. Carmichael’s use of the phrase reflected growing frustration with persistent violence, poverty, and political exclusion despite earlier nonviolent campaigns.

The term had earlier uses, including in Richard Wright’s 1954 book Black Power, so Carmichael did not originate every use of the phrase. However, his 1966 speeches helped make it a defining slogan of the later civil rights and Black freedom movements.