“White liberals are always saying, 'What can we do?” I mean, they’re always coming to help black people. The society either pretends it does not know of this latter situation, or is in fact incapable of doing anything meaningful about it.” But it is institutional racism that keeps black people locked in dilapidated slum tenements, subject to the daily prey of exploitative slumlords, merchants, loan sharks and discriminatory real estate agents. When a black family moves into a home in a white neighborhood and is stoned, burned or routed out, they are victims of an overt act of individual racism which many people will condemn - at least in words.

But when in that same city - Birmingham, Alabama - five hundred black babies die each year because of the lack of proper food, shelter and medical facilities, and thousands more are destroyed and maimed physically, emotionally and intellectually because of conditions of poverty and discrimination in the black community, that is a function of institutional racism. When white terrorists bomb a black church and kill five black children, that is an act of individual racism, widely deplored by most segments of the society. The second type originates in the operation of established and respected forces in the society, and thus receives far less public condemnation than the first type. But it is no less destructive of human life. The second type is less overt, far more subtle, less identifiable in terms of specific individuals committing the acts. This type can be recorded by television cameras it can frequently be observed in the process of commission. The first consists of overt acts by individuals, which cause death, injury or the violent destruction of property. We call these individual racism and institutional racism. It takes two, closely related forms: individual whites acting against individual blacks, and acts by the total white community against the black community.

Stokely carmichael speech