William Strickland, a longtime civil rights activist, scholar and friend of Malcom X, has died
BOSTON — William Strickland, a civil rights activist and supporter of the Black Power movement who worked with Malcom X and other prominent leaders in the 1960s, has died. He was 87.
Strickland, whose death was confirmed by a family member on April 10, first became active in civil rights as a high school student in Massachusetts. He later became inspired by the writings of Richard Wright and James Baldwin while studying at Harvard University, according to Peter Blackmer, a former student who is now an assistant professor of Africology and African American Studies at Easter Michigan University.
“He made incredible contributions to the black freedom movement that haven’t really been appreciated,” Blackmer said. “His contention was that civil rights do not provide a sufficient framework to challenge the systems behind the oppression of Black communities across the diaspora.”
Strickland joined the Boston chapter of the Northern Student Movement in the early 1960s, which supported sit-ins and other protests in the South. He became the group’s executive director in 1963 and from there became a supporter of the Black Power movement, which emphasized racial pride, self-reliance and self-determination. Strickland also worked with Malcolm X, Baldwin, and others in New York on rent strikes, school boycotts, and protests against police brutality.
Amilcar Shabazz, professor at the WEB Du Bois Department of African American Studies, University of Massachusetts, said Strickland followed a path very similar to civil rights pioneer Du Bois.
“He underwent a similar experience in working as an agent for social change in the world against the three major issues of the civil rights movement – imperialism or militarism, racism and the economic injustice of plantation capitalism,” Shabazz said. “He fought against this threefold evil. He did that in his scholarship, in his teaching, in his activism and in the way he walked in the world.”
After the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Strickland co-founded the independent black think tank, the Institute of the Black World. From its inception in 1969, it served for many years as a gathering place for black intellectuals.
From there he went to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he taught political science for forty years and was director of the WEB Du Bois Papers. He also traveled to Africa and the Caribbean, where Shabazz said he met leaders of black liberation movements in Africa and Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Strickland also wrote about racism and capitalism for several media outlets, including Essence and Souls, and served as a consultant on several documentaries, including “Eyes on the Prize” and the PBS documentary “Malcolm X – Make It Plain,” Blackmer said.
Comparing him to Malcolm
“As a teacher, he taught us to think like students – to understand and deconstruct racism, capitalism and imperialism, while being fearless and unafraid to challenge the systems we face as a way to develop a strategy to challenge them,” Blackmer said.
To family members, Strickland was an intellectual giant with a sense of humor who was not afraid “to speak his mind.”
‘He always spoke truth to power. That was the type of guy he was,” said Earnestine Norman, a cousin who remembers their conversations, which often took place over the FaceTime phone app. They planned to take a trip to Spain, where Strickland had a home before he developed health problems.
“He always told the truth about our culture, about being African here in America and the struggles we had,” she continued. “Sometimes it might have embarrassed some people or whatever, but his truth was his truth. His knowledge was his knowledge and he was not the type of person who, as the saying goes, bites his tongue.”