Ron Karenga

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Maulana Karenga (born July 14, 1941), also known as Ron Everett, is an African American author and political activist. He is best known as the founder of Kwanzaa, a week-long Pan-African celebration observed each year from December 26 to January 1, initiated in California in 1967.

1 Career
2 Background and education
3 Influences of Malcolm X
4 U.S. Organization and the Black Panthers
5 Felony conviction and time in prison
6 Kawaida, the Nguzo Saba, and Kwanzaa
7 Films
8 Books by Maulana Karenga
9 Further Information
10 Footnotes
11 External links

[edit] Career

Karenga created the organization US, a Black Nationalist group, in 1965. In 1971 he was convicted of felony assault for torture on two of the group's female members, for which he spent time in prison. (Everett forced the mouth of one of the women open and then poured drain cleaner down her throat. He also burned cigarettes on the bodies of both women.) After his release in 1975, he resumed his academic studies, later becoming chairman of the black studies department at California State University, Long Beach, a position he held from 1989 to 2002. [1]

He is also known for having co-hosted, in 1984, a conference that gave rise to the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations, and in 1995, he sat on the organizing committee and authored the mission statement of the Million Man March. He is the director of the Kawaida Institute for Pan African Studies[2] and the author of several books, including his Introduction to Black Studies, a comprehensive black/African studies textbook now in its third edition.

[edit] Background and education

Karenga was born on a poultry farm in Parsonsburg, Maryland, the fourteenth child of a Baptist minister. He moved to California in the late 1950s to attend Los Angeles City College, where he became the first African-American president of the student body. He was admitted to University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as part of a federal program for students who had dropped out of high school, and received his master's degree in political science and African studies. He was awarded his first PhD in 1976 from United States International University (now known as Alliant International University) for a 170-page dissertation entitled Afro-American Nationalism: Social Strategy and Struggle for Community. Later in his career, in 1994, he was awarded a second PhD, in social ethics, from the University of Southern California (USC), for an 803-page dissertation entitled "Maat, the moral ideal in ancient Egypt: A study in classical African ethics."

[edit] Influences of Malcolm X

Karenga was influenced in the creation of his ethos for US by Malcolm X.

"Malcolm was the major African American thinker that influenced me in terms of nationalism and Pan-Africanism. As you know, towards the end, when Malcolm is expanding his concept of Islam, and of nationalism, he stresses Pan-Africanism in a particular way. And he argues that, and this is where we have the whole idea that cultural revolution and the need for revolution, he argues that we need a cultural revolution, he argues that we must return to Africa culturally and spiritually, even if we can’t go physically. And so that’s a tremendous impact on US. And US saw itself, when we founded it, as the sons and daughters of Malcolm, and as the heirs to his legacy." —Ron Karenga^[1]

[edit] U.S. Organization and the Black Panthers

At the beginning of the 1960s, Karenga met Malcolm X and began to embrace Black nationalism. Following the Watts riots in 1965, he interrupted his doctoral studies at UCLA and joined the Black Power movement. During this time, he awarded himself the title "maulana", Swahili for "master teacher." He formed United Slaves, later called the U.S. Organization, an outspoken Black nationalist group that some allege was encouraged by the FBI in order to counter the Black Panthers.

In 1969, the US Organization and the Black Panthers disagreed over who should head the new Afro-American Studies Center at UCLA. According to a Los Angeles Times article, Karenga and his supporters backed one candidate, the Panthers another. The Black Student Union set up a coalition to try to bring peace between the groups, which ended when US members George P. and Larry Joseph Stiner shot dead two members of the Black Panthers, John Jerome Huggins and Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter. The killing was dismissed by UCLA chancellor Charles E. Young as an unrelated incident. [3]

[edit] Felony conviction and time in prison

In 1971 Karenga, Louis Smith, and Luz Maria Tamayo were convicted of felony assault and false imprisonment for assaulting and torturing two women from the United Slaves, Deborah Jones & Gail Davis, over a two day period. [4] A May 14, 1971 article in the Los Angeles Times described the testimony of one of the women: "Deborah Jones, who once was given the Swahili title of an African queen, said she and Gail Davis were whipped with an electrical cord and beaten with a karate baton after being ordered to remove their clothes. She testified that a hot soldering iron was placed in Ms. Davis's mouth and placed against Ms. Davis's face and that one of her own big toes was tightened in a vise. Karenga also put detergent and running hoses in their mouths, she said." They also were hit on the heads with toasters.^{[citation needed]}

At Karenga's trial, the question arose as to Karenga's sanity. It is theorized that Karenga may have had a mental breakdown due to the stress of dealing with the violence and murders surrounding his United Slaves (US) organization and the Black Panther Party (BPP). His behavior became bizarre and at his trial a psychiatrist's report stated the following: "This man now represents a picture that can be considered both paranoid and schizophrenic with hallucinations and illusions, inappropriate affect, disorganization, and impaired contact with the environment."^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Kawaida, the Nguzo Saba, and Kwanzaa

In 1975, Karenga was released from California State Prison, with his newly adopted views on Marxism, and re-established the US organization under a new structure. One year later, he was awarded his first doctorate. In 1977, he formulated a set of principles called Kawaida, a Swahili term for tradition and reason. Kwanzaa is an adjunct of Kawaida. Karenga called on African Americans to adopt his secular humanism and reject other practices as mythical (Karenga 1977, pp. 14, 23, 24, 27, 44–5).

Central to Karenga's collectivist doctrine are the Nguzo Saba, the Seven Principles of Blackness, which are reinforced during the seven days of Kwanzaa:

Umoja (unity)—To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
Kujichagulia (self-determination)—To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
Ujima (collective work and responsibility)—To build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and sister's problems our problems and to solve them together.
Ujamaa (cooperative economics)—To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
Nia (purpose)—To make our collective vocation the building and development of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
Kuumba (creativity)—To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
Imani (faith)—To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

[edit] Films

In 2005 Karenga made his theatrical debut when he and other Africans academics featured in the multi-award winning film 500 Years Later, directed by Owen 'Alik Shahadah.

USA the Movie - Voice only

[edit] Books by Maulana Karenga

Introduction to Black Studies, 2002, 3rd edition, University of Sankore Press, ISBN 0-943412-23-4
Kwanzaa: Origin, Concepts, Practice, 1977, Kawaida Groundwork Committee
Maat, The Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt ISBN 0-415-94753-7