The sons of civil rights activist Kwame Ture did not have much time with their father, but they are carrying on his legacy in their own way as Pan-African activists.
Ture, born in TT as Stokely Carmichael in 1941, moved to the US at age 11 and became involved in black activism while attending Howard University. He was well-known for his part in America’s Civil Rights Movement, the global Pan-African movement, and for popularising the term “Black Power.”
In 1969 he moved to Conakry, Guinea with his first wife, South African singer Miriam Makeba, and changed his name to Kwame Ture in honour of his friends, Pan-African leaders Sekou Touré (president of Guinea) and Kwame Nkrumah (president of Ghana).
In 1996 Ture was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He was treated at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, New York, before he returned to Guinea, where he died in 1998 at 57.
Sunday Newsday spoke to Ture’s eldest son, Bokar Biro Ture, in Guinea.
At the time he was travelling in a hired car on his way to do some errands before he flew out of the country for work. The internet connection was not great and the call was disrupted several times as people tried to reach him on his phone.
Despite the connectivity issues, he said he knew his father well, as he lived with Ture in Guinea for 11 years before moving to the US with his mother. He also saw his father during Ture’s recruitment tours and travels to the US, and stayed at his home in Guinea during his school vacations.
Bokar, 40, was named after Bokar Biro Barry, a ruler who fought against French colonial rule in Guinea in the late 1800s. He is also a descendant of Barry on his mother’s side.
[caption id="attachment_907397" align="alignnone" width="899"] Bokar Biro Ture -[/caption]
Ture taught Bokar and his friends maths, politics, history, about people who had an impact on black people both positively and negatively – and took them to the beach to learn to swim.
“I had the privilege of living in the same house with my father for many years. His house was like a community centre. In the neighbourhood where we lived in Guinea it was pretty much like Belmont in Trinidad. It was a tough environment, but his house was open to everyone. All the neighbouring kids used to come there. We used to play there – all my friends would come – and he would teach us.”
Bokar did a degree in economics as well as African American and African Studies at the University of Virginia. He then went to the London School of Economics, where he got his MSc in economic development.
Earlier, after leaving school, he worked as a community organiser in underprivileged communities in the US, then worked at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, NY.
“A good part of my foundation years were spent with my father whose life was dedicated to the service of others. That obviously had a deep impact on me.
“Then, if there’s one thing I strongly share with my father (it’s) this Pan-African-ness feeling. Anything dealing with the African diaspora is something I’
