"Karenga's haunting ghost" by Mukasa Afrika Ma’at (link at the end)

DEDICATED TO DR. JOHN HENRIKE CLARKE who said, “He has not atoned to the community for his attempt to destroy the Panther movement. He has not atoned for being a police informant. He has not atoned for the way he treated Black women.”

DEDICATED TO MWALIMU WESLEY KABAILA who said, “I write the following in the spirit of Maat, and the truth embodied in it. I also write it as a matter of corrective history, that has too long endured as lies.”

Introduction

Maulana Karenga is the “founder” of Kwanzaa. He also supposedly began the US organization and developed the theory of Kawaida. He is the author of a number of “culturally nationalist” books and other writings. He is considered an internationally renowned leader of Afrikan people. He was a speaker and one of the key organizers of the historic Million Man March in 1995. He is one of the founders of ASCAC and has been an activist and academician for decades.

The hero worshippers of Maulana Karenga would be more than happy if I simply detailed the above historic facts and ignored the ghost which has haunted the past of their leader. They would be more than happy if I, like them, ignored the facts of his dirty past. They would be pleased if I did not ask and address the essential questions which they so vainly attempt to delete from the pages of history.

A Karenga fan once asked if I'd ever change my stance on his leader. I told him I already did – I was once a “fan” like him. I never espoused Kawaida theory. I was never a member of the US organization. However, I was once a participant of Kwanzaa celebrations. I often quoted the works of Maulana Karenga. I’d use his resources to prove a point in some discourse or historical debate. That was a long time ago. Thankfully, I have never been afraid to question, critique, and grow. Some people are okay with the superficial and misguided while others, like myself, seek to always grow and stand on principles – even if that means speaking out against people we once admired. While some of us will question a “leader,” others who do not stand on principles will find all kinds of creative ways to excuse their “leaders” unacceptable and sometimes treacherous behavior against our people. I am not one of those people.

My purpose is to inform the people so that they can make insightful decisions about whatever they choose to celebrate or worship, in regards to my research and discussions on religions. I will not be silenced because I expose truths that others wish to sweep under the rug. We have this bad habit of not addressing the shortcomings or horrendous behavior of leaders because some feel we have a shortage of leaders. Well, we do have a shortage of leaders, but to not address the issues borders on treachery. No leader, religion, or topic is unquestionable. The Afrikan-Conscious movement must do a better job of informing our people on a number of issues and topics if we indeed the bringers of Ma’at (Truth).

Cult of Personality and Hero Worship

A cult of personality and hero worshipping has developed around Maulana Karenga. Let us define a cult of personality and hero worship as related to Karenga. A cult of personality is when a person or a group develops unrealistic praise for an individual. They cease to honor the principles which someone and others might stand for and instead they begin to honor and worship the person. The problem is that men are flawed and when a cult of personality develops, the mind of the follower will find it very difficult to accept normal Human faults. Additionally, when the leader has committed heinous crimes, the cult follower will not even hear such unspeakable “ideas” against their leader. This is when the cult of personality becomes hero worship, which is even more unrealistic, even more ridiculous, and even more dangerous. Hero worship develops when a cult of a person/leader elevates them to the status of demi-god – in some cases the leader may even become “God”.

Karenga has followers of varying degrees. Firstly, some are simply respectful of his intellectual work and they may or may not question his ghost and dirty past. Secondly, the next level up for Karenga are those who are ardent followers of one or more of the concepts associated with him such as Kwanzaa or Kawaida. This third set of followers may or may not be partially engulfed in the next set of followers. The third group is made of the cult worshippers who not only live Karenga’s principles as part of their lives, but refuse to accept any questions of wrong doing against him. Anyone who questions their cult leader must be doing the work of the white man or defaming a great Black leader. By all means, Karenga is innocent of all charges against him. It was all a COINTELPRO conspiracy against him. He didn’t do it! This group is beyond the realistic and trying to reasonable convince them or debate with them is a waste of time. The fourth or last group of followers are Karenga’s hero worshippers who simply consider him near divine or even divine. These hero worshippers are the ones who would bow, kneel to the ground and kiss his hand. Yes this was a practice of members in the US organization. I am informed of this from people who actually witnessed his cult following hero worshippers kneeling, kissing his hand, and mumbling “Maulana, Maulana, Maulana.”

A leader can have a cult of personality without having an actual cult organization or cult of rituals. Karenga has all three. I have categorized the cult of personality around Karenga in the above paragraph. There are several ways in which his cult of organization, US, and his cult of rituals can be exhibited.

Was US a cult organization? Well, you decide. Consider the above scenes reported to me about Karenga’s weird ritual of his members bowing, kneeling, and kissing his hand. Imagine the young impressionable brother in the late 60s kneeling down and kissing his hand, dressed like Karenga with dark shades on and head shaved, like Karenga.

Also, Karenga was and is as far as I know a polygamist. He would have his “first” wife sit down and tell prospective wives about the great deeds of the “Maulana” to convince them to join in their polygamist marriage. This I have established directly from a woman whom the wife attempted to seduce into the arrangement. Karenga has been seen out and about with his wives over the years. Besides the fact the polygamy is not a common practice in America, while common in some Afrikan cultures, it is against the law. It is but further evidence of a cult leader.

I will discuss the cult rituals around Kwanzaa later. These rituals around the made up holiday also provides more evidence of the cult behavior built up around Karenga. Let us here address if there is evidence that Karenga was an FBI rat agent.

Karenga: FBI Agent with an Anti-Panther Mission?

Karenga was financed and provided with guns and drugs by the FBI according to confessed agent provocateurs and infiltrators Earl Anthony and Louis Tackwood, and suspected former agent provocateur and infiltrator Elaine Brown. Elaine Brown, herself an agent, says that Karenga was an agent in Taste of Power. She opens up about Karenga being an agent but does not come clean about herself. If you consider her willful destructive behavior in the book, how she came into the party and sexed her way to the top only to cause division, the allegation of her being an infiltrator fits. Geronimo ji Jaga Pratt in an open letter before his death informed the public that Brown was a former agent, but he was misinformed and thought Karenga was not. Both Brown and Karenga accuse anyone who calls them an agent of supporting COINTELPRO strategies or J. Edgar Hoover type actions against them. This is a deflection strategy common with agents and former agents. Karenga and his supporters have had to use this tactic much more than Brown. Both Brown and Karenga were agents. They have not confessed to their work against the movement like Earl Anthony and Louis Tackwood.

Agent provocateur Earl Anthony’s confessions are valuable in this regard. He admits his own dirt and so has little reserve with also mentioning Karenga’s dirt. Anthony states that he was first informed of Karenga being an agent, being supplied with weapons, and given the mission to destroy the Black Panther Party in LA by FBI agents Robert O'Connor and Ron Kizenski. Furthermore, a lot of inconsistencies with criminal prosecution and brutal treatment against the Black Panthers compared with that of Karenga’s US organization speaks to him being an agent. The prime historical example of this is after the murders of Bunchy Carter and John Huggins, the police didn’t go after Karenga’s US; they went after Black Panthers and conducted raids. Consider Anthony’s Spitting in the Wind which many question outside of one fact, the book is an uncut confessional of an agent provocateur. Anthony stands to gain nothing from his confessions of himself and Karenga, except he doesn’t take his own dirt to the grave.

Like Earl Anthony, another former agent provocateur was Louis Tackwood, who came clean on his dirt and many others in 1971. He also says that Karenga was an agent with an anti-Panther mission. Tackwood’s word can be found in his Glass House Tapes. Tackwood’s words are startling, but if any of it is true, he and Earl Anthony are correct in pointing out the COINTELPRO manipulation of rat Karenga. Like Anthony, he has nothing to gain except as near to a clean conscience from his confession that he can get. Consider this quote from Brother Sekhem in his 2006 article, The Intelligence Origins of Kwanzaa:

Colton Westbrook, working with the LAPD's CCS (Criminal Conspiracy Section) and Division Five of the FBI, used certain newly "Africanized" and modified recruits to set up two primary synthetic terror groups known as the Us organization with police agent Ron N. Everett a.k.a. Ron Karenga; and the SLA, or Symbionese Liberation Army with police informer and provocateur Donald DeFreeze. According to CCS police snitch and provocateur Louis Tackwood, Ron Karenga and his Us (later known as the United Slaves) organization were funded by the Ford Foundation, the LAPD and his good friend Mayor Sam Yorty through municipal funds. Financing to the tune of over $50,000 per year, plus two offices and five apartments, as indicated in the September 6, 1969 edition of the Black Panther newspaper. The Wall Street Journal revealed that Karenga “Maintained close ties to the eastern Rockefeller family” and that “A few weeks after the assassination of Martin Luther King… Mr. Karenga slipped into Sacramento for a private chat with Governor Ronald Reagan, at the governor’s request. The black nationalist also met clandestinely with Los Angeles Police Chief Thomas Reddin after King had been killed.”

Louis E. Tackwood was the liaison man between Karenga and DeFreeze and LAPD's CCS division. Aptly named, the Criminal Conspiracy Section's sole purpose and agenda was to target and destroy black militants and their organizations, through conspiracies involving informers, agent provocateurs, programmed assassins and set-up men. As well as "militant" synthetic terror groups to sabotage and discredit the Afrikan liberation movement in general. Through Tackwood, Ron Karenga and his United Slaves (we should've known they were punks by their ******* name alone!) were given their assignments to "Work in opposition to other Black groups within the Black community, which attracted large numbers of Blacks." Karenga was directly ordered to “Curtail the Panther Party’s growth, no matter what the cost, and that no rang-a-tang (CCS slang for US members) —that’s what we called his people— would ever be convicted of murder.” Tackwood also stated that he provided Karenga with assassination orders from the FBI to kill Panther leaders Elmore Geronimo Pratt, and Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter.

It is debate about whether US ever stood for Untied Slaves. That is not my debate. Karenga did meet with LA Police Chief Thomas Reddin and Governor Ronald Reagan in supposedly an effort to help with the aftermath of the riots following Martin Luther King’s assassination and to discuss the imprisonment of US members. Karenga met with Police Chief Reddin and then with Reagan at Reagan’s request as reported by Scot Brown in Fighting for US. Brown also documented the torture of two Black women by Karenga which I will detail later. Karenga was very displeased with Brown’s Fighting for US and had his colleague, Molefi Asante, write a very lofty and flattering biography of him entitled Karenga: An Intellectual Portrait. Among other errors, Asante claims that Karenga was mentor to Jacob Hudson Carruthers on matters related to the study of KMT (Ancient Egypt). The opposite is true. While Karenga was in jail for kidnap and torture of two Black women, Carruthers was in Senegal meeting with Cheikh Anta Diop discussing the need to teach the history, literature, and culture of KMT. Of course Asante doesn’t mention this fact. Equally, Asante leaves out some other very critical history about Karenga which I will address.

Consider the following from The FBI's War on the Black Panther Party's Southern California Chapter:

What gives some credence, though not proof, to the theory held by Brown and Anthony is that while the more conservative theory holds that the FBI was using each group against the other, the repression faced by the BPP was much more severe than that faced by the US organization. The pattern of killings described above is a case in point. Another is that the FBI opened a conspiracy investigation for Panther Geronimo Pratt for a bank robbery that the FBI knew had been committed by US members.(63)

Another example of police favoritism towards US is the initial police response to the killings of Carter and Huggins, which was not to go after the US organization or any other suspects in the murder, but instead to deploy over 150 police officers to raid a Panther apartment and arrest 75 Panthers, including the remaining Panther leadership, on charges of intending to murder US members in retaliation!(64) Later, the police arrested US's Stiner brothers, Larry and George. The Stiners were given life terms and sent to San Quentin, but, adding to suspicions that US members were deliberately given light treatment, they "walked away from a minimum security area on March 30, 1974."(65) Larry Stiner turned himself in on Feb. 5, 1994, while George Stiner remained a fugitive.(66)

Karenga met with Police Chief Reddin and Governor Reagan at a time of false imprisonment, agent infiltrations, and even assassinations of activists in California and America in general. Reagan called the home of Karenga for the meeting. Reagan would not call Karenga in 1968 unless the FBI had already sniffed him out, profiled him, and/or put him on payroll. This was at the height of COINTELPRO operations. Governors don’t meet with so-called radicals at the height of COINTELPRO to have tea. The events of the time gives much credence to confessions by agent provocateurs and infiltrators Earl Anthony and Louis Tackwood, and among others such as Elaine Brown, that Karenga had an anti-Panther mission, was given guns, money, and drugs, and was an agent himself given a mission to destroy the Black Panther Party.

The Kwanzaa Cult and Jewish-RBG Candle Lighting

I am Afrikan spiritual and practice Afrikan rituals myself. A ritual is not cultist if it is authentically grown out of the tradition of a people. Cultist rituals are not the expressions of a people. Cultist rituals are non-authentic expressions to bolster the personality worship of particular individuals or groups.

While Kwanzaa events have helped raise some Afrikan consciousness due less to Karenga and more to local activists, many who are not associated with Karenga at all, the holiday can promote a superficial and even pseudo consciousness of Afrikan lifestyle. Kwanzaa has been used to promote the personality worship of Karenga. Hollie West interviewed Karenga in 1978 for the Washington Post and wrote the following:

“I created Kwanzaa,” laughed Ron Karenga like a teenager who’s just divulged a deeply held, precious secret. “People think it’s African. But it’s not. I wanted to give black people a holiday of their own. So I came up with Kwanzaa. I said it was African because you know black people in this country wouldn’t celebrate it if they knew it was American. Also, I put it around Christmas because I knew that’s when a lot of bloods (blacks) would be partying!”

The holiday is not authentically Afrikan, as Karenga said himself. The Jewish Hanukkah Festival of Lights begins on the 25th of the Jewish calendar in Kislev and last eight days. It is roughly around Christmas on December 25th. A candle is burned each day with the Servant or Helper candle. This is strangely similar to the Kwanzaa lighting ceremony where the Servant candle is replaced with the Black candle. Instead of 8 candles and the 1 helper candle like the Jewish celebration, Kwanzaa uses seven candles with the colors red, black, and green. I call them Jewish rbg (red, black, and green) candles for this very fact to note an Afrikan surface painted over a Jewish ritual. Many elders who celebrate Kwanzaa do so without the Jewish rbg candles. These elders instead pour libations, a time honored and unquestioned Afrikan tradition of thousands of years. We must be very serious about the rituals we pass down to generations. We must be very careful with who we call leaders. I will discuss more of the questions around Karenga’s leadership in the next section.

The Kwanzaa lighting celebration with seven principles over seven days, although performed out of sincerity by countless Blacks, is a copy of the Jewish Festival of Lights of eight days. Due to this very reason, it is more cultist than it is Afrikan. We learned as much from Karenga laughing like a teenager in 1978. At the very minimum, this Jewish lighting ceremony should be eliminated to gain some respectability among the holiday’s participants.

The Stance of Mwalimu Wesley Kabaila: Separating the Message from the Messenger.

A Middle Ground or Middle of Nowhere?

Mwalimu Wesley Kabaila has been a member of the US organization from 1967 to 1985. He was Karenga’s body guard, a proponent of Kawaida since 1967, and a promoter of Kwanzaa virtually since the beginning. He was the Vice Chairman of the US organization and Chairman of the Simba Wachanga from 1979 to 1985. Kabaila was Karenga’s strong arm man and one of his most loyal students and dedicated followers. He is not as well-known as Maulana Karenga, but nonetheless Kabaila is truly an historic figure and played a major role in the development and promotion of the organization US, the philosophy of Kawaida, and the widespread acceptance of the holiday. Furthermore, I am aware of no allegations against him such as those heinous crimes committed by Karenga. Additionally, he seems to be a man of character for reasons I will address in this section. He has raised concerns which should be addressed on the subject. Before addressing the matter, I’d like to further establish the historic significance of Mwalimu Kabaila. In my correspondence with him, he stated the following about some of the struggles he faced in the movement:

I have sent for my FBI file and know they were following me and reporting. Also, after the Black Power Conference in 1968, in Philly, I and two other Simbas went to Newark to help in organizing the Committee for a Unified Newark with the BCD (Black Community Defense) which was based in Monclair and East Orange. During my stay there, I mostly stayed at Amiri Baraka's Spirit House. During that period the Italians in power in Newark had the Spirit House shot up. When Rahh retaliated, the Italians never messed with us again. WE were protected by the god. After 3 months, I returned to LA. The next day my parents called me to say that the FBI had came to their house in NJ and asked about my involvement in Us, saying we were for overthrow of the government. What really scared my parents was that the agents brought up my parents involvement in the Paul Robeson movement back in 1946-47. I hadn't even known that, as my parents never talked about it before. The FBI also went to my wife's job, harassed her and tried to get her fired.

Kabaila’s voice must be part of the dialog on Karenga and the US organization. As of yet, he is not cited as much as should be the case. Besides a few lines in a book or two, I was not very aware of Kabaila or his contributions until he released a brief but historically crucial open letter admonishing Karenga on two key points and noting a lesson on leadership on a third. These are the key points in his open letter:

1. He states that Karenga should be honest about the fall of the US organization, not because members left him but due to his imprisonment from criminal behavior with Deborah Jones and Gail Davis.

2. He admonishes Karenga to come forward, atone, and apologize for his treatment of women. Kabaila also mentions Karenga locking up his first wife in a tiger cage and attempting to rape another woman. He admonishes Karenga to atone for these wrongs against Black women.

3. Kabaila argues that there are lessons on leadership from this critical history that must be passed on to future generations.

I fully agree with Mwalimu Kabaila on the three above points which he notes in his open letter. Karenga should atone for his wrongs and criminal behavior towards the sisters he has mistreated and especially those he has assaulted. He should apologize to the community and definitely to those he victimized. I also agree with Kabaila regarding the matter being a lesson of leadership for future generations. It takes courage for a person to speak out against someone whom they held in such high esteem. Kabaila was personally responsible for the safety of Karenga as his bodyguard for years and would have given his life to save Karenga’s. I applaud him for coming forward in the name of Ma’at (Truth) to encourage Karenga to have a higher standard for his own behavior and disclose what happened.

Of course I disagree with Kabaila about the significance of Kwanzaa to Afrikan people. He argues that it has a role in our liberation struggle and points to the millions of people who celebrate the holiday. I argue it is a stepping stone at most and must be altered to take out the Jewish influence or left entirely. My above section on the Kwanzaa rituals explains that reasoning in detail. Kabaila states that Kwanzaa was a collective creation of the US organization and not just Karenga’s. I have no argument with that matter, but it would very well benefit the reputation of Kwanzaa if it was less associated with Karenga and more associated with the US organization as a collective. Right now, it is not.

On the other hand, Kabaila stops short of calling Karenga a rat agent or rapist. As his bodyguard of 20 years, unless he personally witnessed certain things, I’m not surprised that Kabaila would not like to believe certain things happened. While he says, “I concede he (Karenga) is a liar, a meglo-maniac, a torturer, and a sexist” who also has exhibited “diabolical behavior,” he does not say he was an agent or rapist. In fact, he states unequivocally in his open letter that no one in the inner circle of the US organization were agents. Kabaila is also of the opinion that Elaine Brown was not an agent in spite of the convincing letter of Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt laying out her actions as what he considers to be an agent. This is also in spite of her own damning autobiography, Taste of Power. This is another point where I part ways with Kabaila, yet I must say I believe I understand his middle ground stance. I think because Kabaila was an eyewitness to a lot of the hurt from that era, he is very cautious with identifying people as agents of COINTELPRO. Although the term itself seems to annoy him, he has acknowledged in my correspondence with him that he is convinced that agents did operate on the periphery of US, not the inner-circle, and in the movement’s other organizations. My take is that he feels we should be focused on the struggle ahead for our people instead of seeking out evidence of agent activity from the past. While this is an admirable middle ground stance, agents did exist in the US organization, the Black Panther Party, and every other organization worth any note in the 60s and 70s. That is why I agree with him on his major points in his open letter. Disclosure of wrongs done may begin healing some wounds that time has not. Agents need to disclose their activity as well, like Earl Anthony and Louis Tackwood who also disclosed information about Karenga. On Kabaila’s third point, regarding leadership lessons for future generations, equally I’d argue can only be enhanced with knowing who worked as COINTELPRO agents and who did not. Although Kabaila was his personal bodyguard, Karenga had time for meetings with Tackwood or other agents outside of Kabaila’s presence. The FBI would have considered Kabaila a threat if he was uncompromising and couldn’t offer them anything new that they could already get from Karenga, a much more valuable risk. History has shown that Kabalia was not an agent. Of course, Ji Jaga was simply not around Karenga enough to establish that he was or wasn’t an agent.

Kabaila takes his admirable middle ground of reconciliation on these matters. While he admonishes Karenga to come forward for his wrongs, he also does not say that Karenga raped Davis and Jones noting they didn’t testify about rape then or say anything of it since. That however is not sufficient evidence that the crime didn’t happen. Kabaila does say that the women were held for three weeks and not 2 days as is widely believed from court testimony. However, the court transcripts have miraculously disappeared. My argument has been that the women were raped and threatened or persuaded to only admit to torture and kidnap over two days instead of three weeks which would result in a shorter sentence for Karenga. How could he get away with a short sentence for such heinous crimes? How could he not have rape charges brought against him and have what was a three week hostage/torture situation turn into 2 days? Karenga was found guilty on only two counts of felonious assault and one count of false imprisonment. That would not have happened if the testimony of 3 weeks kidnap and torture would have entered the court. How could he get away with that unless he was an agent supported by the FBI’s COINTELPRO as reported by former agents? There are others questions as well which point to Karenga being a protected FBI agent. For instance, Kabaila’s letter establishes even more so a pattern of sick and depraved behavior by Karenga. Anyone as sick as Karnega would have no problem with also being an agent against a movement in which he was supposedly a leader. Why would the court transcripts come up missing? Why would the transcripts disappear like smoke into thin air? I smell a rat! They have been deleted from the pages of history never to be seen again. How often do you hear of court documents coming up missing in which you have the graphic statements of victims?

We do have the transcripts of the sentencing hearing and they paint Karenga as a mad man capable of anything. During his sentencing, a psychiatric report read that he was delusional, paranoid and schizophrenic, experiencing hallucinations, and talked to his blanket and imaginary people in his cell. After serving time in prison from 1971 to 1975, Karenga popped up again as the Chairman of the Black Studies Department at California State University of Long Beach in 1979. Was he a reformed criminal? Was he still an agent? Many believe that his position at California State University was a set up by the FBI for Karenga to further manipulate the Black Power Movement away from radicalism. Many believe that the promotion of Kwanzaa was for the same reason. On December 24th, 1971, after Karenga was sent to prison, the New York Times ran an article on Kwanzaa but didn’t mention Karenga’s background or that he was in prison while the ink was drying on the pages. Other articles would come out of the New York Times and because of the newspaper’s reputation; other papers would pick it up across the country. The New York Times has long been suspected of promoting government propaganda to the masses of country. This 1971 endorsement of Kwanzaa by the New York Times begs to differ with the idea of an initial grassroots spread of the holiday. Questions are raised especially because Karenga was in prison at the time and no mention was made of that fact.

We have the confessions of former agents who state that Karenga was an agent. Was he a man of horrible character? We have one of the most qualified people, his bodyguard of 20 years, to affirm that he was a man of horrible character and had many things for which to atone. Was the holiday a fraud? I say yes for all of the reasons cited above. It may be salvageable to have some respect for its diehard participants if the Jewish influence is taken out. Was Karenga a rapist? I think all evidence points to that as I have cited. I will close with a quote of Brandon Stewart’s article The Story of Ron Karenga: Kwanzaa’s Founder detailing some of the torture the women endured. You be the judge:

It is not the creation of Kwanzaa, however, that is Karenga’s most controversial part of his history. In 1971, Karenga was convicted of kidnapping and torturing two women from his US Organization. He was sentenced to one to ten years in prison.

After obtaining the original Los Angeles Times articles from this time period, the case appears no less bizarre. During the trial, Deborah Jones described the “brutal physical abuse inflicted on her and another 20-year old woman (Gail Davis) by Ron Karenga and three of his followers because they were suspected of poisoning Karenga.” Jones testified in graphic detail how she and Davis “were whipped with an electrical cord and beaten with a karate baton after being ordered to remove their clothes.” She further testified that “a hot soldering iron was placed in Miss Davis’ mouth and placed against Miss Davis’ face and that one of her own large toes was tightened in a vice.” According to the article, “Karenga, head [and founder] of the US organization, and others also put detergent and running hoses in their mouths.” That last bit was added by Karenga “who was upset because she [Jones] would not cry.” The reason behind the abuse was apparently because Karenga feared that the two women had placed “crystals” in his food that would kill him. According to damning testimony by his wife, Brenda Lorraine Karenga, “she heard him tell the victims that he wanted them to reveal where they were hiding the ‘poison’.” She further testified that she “heard screams and yells coming from the garage where the defendants were holding Deborah Jones and Gail Davis and noises which sounded like someone was being whipped.” The Times reported that during the trial that “scars from the cuts on [Jones’] back were shown to members of the jury” and that Jones testified that “Karenga finally let them go, but only after threatening to shoot them in the hands.”

In a very bizarre testimony, Karenga attempted to defend himself by claiming that he last saw the women leave his Inglewood, CA home “to find other lodging” and that they “appeared healthy looking” when they left. Furthermore, he testified that “he did not know why his wife testified against him” and that his wife and children had not fled to Virginia to get away from him, but rather he had sent his wife and children away for “rest and recuperation”. “If he had known there was any violence within US, such as the alleged beating of the two women, he would have stopped it,” wrote the Times reporter, “adding [the US Organization] was against violence.”

Conclusion and Considerations

I wish to state here that I don’t condemn anyone for whatever celebrations or religions they practice which they feel are good for their families or themselves. However, I believe as Afrikan people we desperately need to have more serious consideration of the culture and cultural values we transmit to our children. I can have a sensible disagreement with anyone on any number of topics. My argument, where I stand, is that people must be informed about their beliefs and practices. Often when people are informed, they may change their minds – some may not. My purpose is to educate and give people information to make insightful judgments and decisions. That should be a stance of the Afrikan-Conscious movement. Question everything and leave no stones unturned. We have to build a sound Afrikan worldview in the future and learn from the past. We will not do this with being so politically correct that we ignore ugly facts about our past and attempt to teach these inaccurate and sanitized versions of historical events.

Maulana Karenga has haunting ghosts that will not leave him, and shouldn’t leave him. He has committed some treacherous acts against his people, against women. He was an FBI COINTELPRO agent. He concocted a holiday that is not authentic and should have some critical analysis. He has done some research of value which is widely read and cited by many in the Afrikan-Centered movement. That is to his credit, however, for many his past isn’t excusable – especially without disclosure. To some it may be, to others not so. To attempt to hide that past and create a sanitized version of history because some believe we have a deficit of leadership is sadly wrong. It is equally wrong to avoid questioning the Jewish influence copied into Kwanzaa because it is awkward to acknowledge that we are copying a Jewish tradition. If people celebrate the holiday or not, that is individual choice. Our responsibility is to inform and educate to raise consciousness and not avoid the ugly past or be silenced by those who are afraid of the exposure of an un-sanitized history.

During that cold time of the year when others are breaking their bank accounts, and lighting daily candles, I myself fast, pray, and meditate with the winter solstice as I do with the turn of each season. I’m not saying that my practice is the only practice. However, no one should feel less than Afrikan/Black because they choose not to celebrate Kwanzaa, especially with the documented information on Karenga. We celebrate traditions simply because of our geographical location regardless of the cultural meaning to our people. That means we are not owners of our cultural worldview.

We celebrate the European conquest, enslavement, and genocide of Natives and Afrikans on the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day, and Columbus Day. We celebrate ghosts of the dead in Halloween and send our children to the houses of strangers to get treats, but tell them the rest of the year don’t talk to strangers. We celebrate our religious enslavement with Christmas. We get drunk during the European New Year. The New Year for the Romans, Celts, and other Europeans was around the winter solstice - dead of winter, coldest time of year, most lifeless time of the year. In KMT (Ancient Egypt) and along the Nile into Kush, the New Year (Wp Rnpt, another time of fasting, prayer, and meditation for me) was during the Summer Solstice with the rise of Spdt (Sirius) - the height of summer, warmest time of the year, everything in full bloom.

The Afrikan world offers a number of authentic and praiseworthy celebrations throughout the year from various countries which we may consider. Zumbi Day of Brazil on November 20th is a day to honor our revolutionary ancestor and his warrior comrades who set up maroon camps called Quilombos and fought slavery. Haiti’s Revolutionary Independence Day on January 1st is a day to honor our revolutionary ancestors who defeated Napoleon and set up a free nation in Haiti in 1804. Nanny Day in October honors the Queen Mother, maroon Obeah priestess who successfully fought slavery in Jamaica and established Nanny Town. Marcus Garvey Day which should be global on August 17th honors the birth of one of the most inspirational Pan-Afrikan leaders of the 19th century. Independence celebrations throughout Afrika which should remind us of the continued need to struggle against modern neo-colonialism should be honored. These are all some examples of authentic celebration we should be informed about as Afrikan people. I can even include Afrikan History Month in the mix. However, I think a deeper, more cultural and spiritual significance should be given to the occasion. Likewise, I think we must definitely honor our history and culture year round. The New Yam festivals of Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, and other West Afrikan nations are authentic Afrikan Spiritual and cultural celebrations that honored our ancestors and deities before the coming of foreign traditions. There are various authentic, Afrikan annual festivals around the world. We have neither a shortage of leaders, nor a shortage of authentic holidays/holydays.

(This article is from Mukasa Afrika's blog : http://afrikan-resistance.blogspot.com)