Washington - Kwame Ture, the fiery US black activist of the 1960s once known as Stokely Carmichael, died yesterday of cancer in the West African nation of Guinea, colleagues said.
Ture (57) helped found the Student Nonviolent Co-ordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s and became its chairman in 1966, helping steer it philosophically to "black power" from nonviolence and encouraging the cultural empowerment of African Americans. He left SNCC in 1968 and became leader of the militant Black Panther party until resigning in 1969 and moving to Guinea. He changed his name to honour the deposed Ghanaian president, Kwame Nkrumah, and Guinea's first president, Sekou Toure.
The civil rights leader, the Rev Jesse Jackson, said that Ture was a man who "rang the freedom bell in this century." He said he visited Ture last week while visiting Africa on a peace mission as an envoy of President Clinton.
