Kwanzaa

Dr. Ron Maulana Karenga, of the US Organization, termed United Slaves by the Black Panthers, was targeted along with the Black Panthers and many other organizations during the operation known as COINTELPRO, the Counterintelligence Program.

This specific phase of attack, instituted and directed by the FBI from 1956 through 1972, it has been characterized by some as the most disruptive and violent period of activity directed against United States citizens by their own government.

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) have revealed that under J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, within the Black community, COINTELPRO was meant to “....prevent the rise of a Black messiah.” To this end, the FBI waged a campaign meant to crush any Black organization or leadership it decided represented an internal threat.

Among the forms of attack used against US Organization and many others was disinformation meant to disrupt cohesion and the ability of Black organizations to unite in true solidarity among themselves.

The FBI exploited the apparent animosity between the Panthers and US, forging letters and sending them to each group, with the FBI signing all the letters in the name of the opposing targeted group, provoking an escalation of violent actions, resulting in a shootout in 1969.

In 1971, Dr. Karenga and others were convicted of charges resulting from torture, to which two female members of the US Organization testified. He was sentenced to 1 to 10 years in prison for felonious assault and false imprisonment.

In 1966, Dr. Karenga established an African American holiday, which he named Kwanzaa, taken from the Swahili word, kwanza, meaning first fruits.

The holiday embraces seven principles, in Kiswahili, the Nguzo Saba. The seven principles are:

Unity
Self determination
Collective work and responsibility
Collective economics
Purpose
Creativity
Faith

Dr.Karenga, at the official Kwanzaa website states, regarding the Values of Kwanzaa:

There is no way to understand and appreciate the meaning and message of Kwanzaa without understanding and appreciating its profound and pervasive concern with values.

In fact, Kwanzaa's reason for existence, its length of seven days, its core focus and its foundation are all rooted in its concern with values. Kwanzaa inherits this value concern and focus from Kawaida, the African philosophical framework in which it was created.

Kawaida philosophy is a communitarian African philosophy which is an ongoing synthesis of the best of African thought and practice in constant exchange with the world.Kawaida theory is explained in a book, Kawaida Theory: An African Communitarian Philosophy, written by Dr. Karenga.

Kwanzaa was established as a cultural not religious holiday. In the past, celebration of the holiday has emphasized an affinity with the need for African Americans to reach back and claim our African roots and heritage through the celebration of the seven African principles. It has been embraced by untold numbers within the so called African American community.

However, in 1997, during the unveiling of the Kwanzaa postage stamp, commissioned by the United States Postal Service that acknowledged the holiday, Dr. Karenga stated that all should:

".... respect, celebrate, and build on the rich resources of its diversity of peoples and cultures, to see [themselves] as an ongoing multicultural project to create a truly just and good society ; and to embrace an ethics of sharing—shared space, shared wealth, shared power, and shared responsibility of all peoples—African, Native American, Latino, Asian, and European—to conceive and build the world they want to live in."

As of ten years ago, the founder and creator of Kwanzaa appears to have rethought the celebration of Kwanzaa, in what many have characterized as a reversal of the major reason and call for and to Black people in American for the celebration of the holiday, that being its unique appeal to those seeking a new African cultural expression of African identity.

At this point in time, it is best that the spirit and focus of Kwanzaa, exemplified by the Nguzo Saba, the seven principles of Kwanzaa: Unity, Self determination, Collective work and responsibility, Collective economics, Purpose, Creativity and Faith, as Queen Mother Imakhu has said for quite some time, that these principles be embraced and incorporated into our every day lives as life principles.

As has always been, the celebration of the holiday of Kwanzaa remains a choice to made by individuals and their families.