Friday evening’s rally was Martin King’s first exposure to the “black power” slogan Carmichael had introduced the night before. Longtime SNCC worker Willie Ricks, an even more ardent proponent of black separatist ideology than Carmichael, had been overjoyed at the response to the new rallying cry. Ricks used Carmichael’s fiery speech at the Friday rally to lead the enthusiastic crowd in repeated chants of SNCC’s new watchword: “We want black power. We want black power.”
