Black Lives

Essays in African American Biography

James L. Conyers

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317475781
• Subtopic: African American History
• Index: Social Sciences

The chapters in this text comprise biographical sketches of previously unknown (or lesser known) African-Americans, among them General Daniel Chappie James Jr; William Levi Dawson (composer); Vinnette Carroll (director and playwright); and Elizabeth Ross Haynes (political speaker and activist).

Part I

Intellectual Biography

1

Maulana Karenga, Kawaida, and Phenomenology

An Intellectual Study

James L. Conyers Jr.

Introduction

Maulana Karenga—philosopher, historian, writer, scholar, orator, and political activist—is considered by many to be one of the leading Afrocentric thinkers in contemporary times. An individual of his caliber and breadth represents the essential attributes of a renaissance person. Karenga as a philosopher has illustrated advanced intellectualism and indomitable valor in his consistent struggle and agitation for the liberation of Africans throughout the diaspora.

This essay seeks to examine Karenga’s philosophical ideas concerning the plurality of Africana life, history, and culture. In the process, this essay also examines the genre of Black biography. Nathan Huggins provides a survey of this genre, saying:

The Afro-American biography generally has a racial and social meaning larger than the particular life portrayed; the life comes to exemplify the need for reform…. Identity, of course, is the core ingredient in any biography. Because identity is a central problem of the Afro-American condition, in one way or another “Who am I, really?” persists as the essential question to be asked and answered. As with all blacks who were born in slavery, the problem of identity may have been “Where was I born, and who were my parents?” In another time, the central question might have had to do with the trauma of self-consciousness of race, of being black. Or, again, that trauma of self-consciousness might be at the arrival of militant commitment to the cause of racial reform (the discovery of a truth or a strategy by which one would reorder life). Central to all of the problems is the peculiar Afro-American dilemma of being both black and an American (Huggins 1988, 175).

The ideological repertoire employed in this study constitutes an Afrocentric perspective. Even more important, this study employs a multiple articulation grid to examine the locus of mediation, conflict, dissonance, recognition, and struggle of engagement of rethinking the subject matter. The purpose of structuring this study ideologically is to provide an alternative analysis to the Eurocentric hegemonic perspective. Hence, the central issue addressed is the imposition of worldview and culture by one group onto another group. This is an imposition rationalized by racialist behavior, in which—following Frantz Fanon—

the point is not only that other races are inferior, but also that they must be inferior. [The racist] is caught up in the must be aspect of the serious attitude. He has chosen to be unreasonable. Hence evidence of racial equality must be ideal evidence—absolute, immutable, perfect—which amounts to saying that every single member of the condemned race must be without fault. The requirement is an improbable goal to achieve (Gordon 1995, 76).

Admittedly, I have presented an intersubjective analysis by interpreting the ideas and philosophy of Maulana Karenga from an Afrocentric cosmology. Germane to this issue, though, is the process of describing and evaluating Karenga’s paradigmatic quest to retain the concepts of memory, history, and ethos. All of the aforementioned variables form the ontological basis of Kawaida theory; equally important is the fact that these concepts are the essential grounds for a philosophy of the liberation, organization, and structuring of a collective consciousness.

Research Methodology and Theory

The research design used in this study is secondary analysis, with an emphasis on content analysis, extracting thematic issues of Kawaida theory and phenomenology with emphasis on Maulana Karenga. The research theory used in this study is the ujima paradigm. Ujima is a Bantu term that means “collective work and responsibility.” This is a theory of culture aimed at describing and evaluating the African experience from an Afrocentric perspective. The principle issues of inquiry used to examine African phenomena are ecology, ontology, epistemology, axiology, and cosmology.

From research conducted for this study, I contend that a qualitative assessment provides a concentric axiological base to locate the writings and scholarship of Karenga in place and time. Research raises the following queries: (1) what contributions has the subject made to the intellectual history of Black Studies; (2) how has the subject positioned himself in describing and evaluating the Africana experience? and (3) how do I use the knowledge acquired from the philosophical contributions of the subject? Figure 1 is a chronological summary of historical and cultural events in the life of Maulana Karenga. Again, the purpose of this summary is to locate in contextual analysis the social ecology of the subject.

Biographical Sketch

Maulana Karenga was formerly known as Ronald Everett Karenga. He was born in 1941 in Parsonsburg, Maryland. It is significant—to locate Karenga in place and time—to note the state of Maryland’s long history of endorsing segregation. Though remaining in the Union, the state of Maryland was the last southern state to abolish the enslavement of African Americans. The year of Karenga’s birth was a period of international chaos, during which African Americans were confronted simultaneously with a domestic struggle to attain liberation and social equality. Indeed, because of the war, this proved to be a turning point for the advancement of African Americans: (1) President Franklin Roosevelt issued the executive order forbidding racial and religious discrimination in defense industries (Executive order 88022); (2) Roosevelt established the fair employment practices committee through Executive Order 8802; (3) the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (in self-defense) precipitated an executive order requesting the declaration of war; and (4) the U.S. Army established a training school for black pilots at Tuskegee, Alabama.

The purpose for providing this chronology of historical data is to describe and evaluate the social environmental factors that shaped Karenga’s ecology. Indeed, we can see that he was born during a period of both struggle and hope, undergirded by the New Deal and by attempts by African Americans to locate a niche for themselves in the social, political, and economic spheres of American society.

Civil Rights

The Civil Rights movement was a pivotal period of protest and demonstration in the United States. Malcolm X and Martin L. King Jr., were two of the key Black leadership figures. Interestingly, there are patterns that illustrate how Karenga’s nationalist perspective is aligned with the philosophical orientation of Malcolm X. Haki Mahadbuti is correct when he states that Malcolm X was a cultural hero to the younger aspirants of the Black Power movement. Even more important is that the ideas and philosophy of Malcolm X were extremely influential to the development of Black Power organizations such as the Black Panther Party, US, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Republic of New Africa. However, the essential point addressed here is that the ideas of Malcolm X provide an ontological basis to locate the formation of the ideas of Karenga.

Table 1.1

Social Ecological Summary of Maulana Karaenga

Year	Event
1941	Born in Parsonsburg, Maryland
1965	Creation of the Afrocentric paradigm Kawaida theory.
1966	Creation of the holiday Kwanzaa.
1966	Establishes the organization US, in Los Angeles.
1967	Publishes The Quotable Karenga, Los Angeles: US.
1970	Establishes the Pan African Studies Institute, Los Angeles.
1976	Development of Afrocentric paradigm Afro-American Nationalism; completion of doctoral dissertation in Political Science at the United States University, in San Diego, California.
1976	Publishes The Roots of US–Panther Conflict: The Perverse and Deadly Games Police Play, San Diego, California: Kawaida Publications
1978	Publishes In Love and Struggle: Poems for Bold Hearts. San Diego, California: Kawaida Publications.
1978	Publishes Essays on Struggle: Position and Analysis, San Diego, California: Kawaida Publications.
1978	Publishes Beyond Connections: Liberation in Love and Struggle, New Orleans, Louisiana: Ahidiana, New Afro-American Movement.
1980	Publishes Kawaida Theory, Inglewood, California: Kawaida Publications.
1983	First publication of Introduction to Black Studies; this text augumented the discipline of Black Studies by providing a survey of the intellectual history of the continental and diaspora African Culture and practice.
1984	Edits and publishes Kernet and the African Worldview: Research, Rescue and Reconstruction, Los Angeles, California: University of Sankore Press.
1984	Edits and publishes Selections from the Husia, Los Angles: University of Sankore Press.
1986	Publishes Black News Reprints on Malcolm X, New York: Black News.
1986	Accepts position of Chair and Professor of Black Studies at California State University at Long Beach.
1989	Publishes an essay titled “Towards a Sociology of Maatian Ethics, in the Journal of African Civilizations, No. 10, Summer 1989, pp. 352–389.
1990	Publishes The Book of Coming Forth, Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press.
1990	Edits and publishes Reconstructing Ancient Kernet, Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press.
1994	Completes Ph.D. in philosophy and ethics at the University of Southern California; dissertation titled “Maat, The Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt: A Study in Classical African Ethics.”
1996	Publishes the book, The Million Man March, Chicago: Third World Press.
1998	Publishes Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture, Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press.

Malcolm X was assassinated in February 1965. A year later, Karenga established the organization US. He is mostly known for his activism during the civil rights movement in Los Angeles, California. The ideological repertoire employed by this organization was a global Pan-Africanist (i.e., cultural nationalist) perspective. Culture became the primary epistemological framework to examine the function of Black life and historical experiences. Karenga exclaims that the key deficiency confronting African American life is the “cultural continual.” In this context, the operative term cultural continual represents the cosmological scope to describe and evaluate Africana history and culture in the attempt to conjunct an understanding of the creation of subordinate status, given African Americans’ status as involuntary migrants.

Again the concepts of place and time are essential to operationalize an understanding of Karenga’s philosophical ideas relative to Africana thought and practice. In a comparative manner, Jahienz Jahn, in his book entitled Muntu, uses the concept Ntu, which signifies African philosophy as a cultural base to explain commonalities of Africana norms, values, and mores (Jahn 1990, 96). In addition, David E. Cooper addresses this point, saying, moreover, that nothing is encountered in isolation, as an independent “substance.” Rather, each thing is “sign-like,” pointing to the things and people that provide the contexts that give it an identity (426). Such is the case, in this sense, for Karenga’s organization of ideas in the development of Afrocentric paradigms such as the Nguzo Saba, Afro-American nationalism, and Kawaida theory.

The Nguzo Saba: Kwanzaa

In 1966, Maulana Karenga created the cultural festival Kwanzaa. Kwanzaa is a Bantu term that means “the first fruits of the harvest.” As such, Kwanzaa is an African American cultural holiday celebrated nationally from December 26 to January 1. This holiday is based on the paradigm of the Nguzo Saba, which identifies seven key principles. During the seven days in which the holiday is celebrated, the following principles are practiced daily: umoja (unity), kujichagulia (self-determination), ujima (collective work and responsibility), ujamaa (cooperative economics), nia (purpose), kuumba (creativity), and imani (faith). In general, these rituals focus on atonement, reaffirmation, and the family values that relate to the African continental and diasporic experiences.

To be straightforward, much of the celebration of Kwanzaa addresses Africana kinship, culture, and history. Again the cultural continual is addressed as one of the key aspects of confronting the function and operationalization of Africana life and history. Therefore, in examining the ideas and philosophy of Karenga, perhaps Kwanzaa can be considered the ontological base of Afrocentric cultural paradigm-making. Indeed, this would support the hypothesis of the intellectual history of Afrocentric theory illustrated in the works of Maulana Karenga.

Afro-American Nationalism

In 1976, Karenga completed his doctoral dissertation, entitled “Afro-American Nationalism: Social Strategy and Struggle for Community,” at the United States International University. Similar to Kawaida theory, the basis for Afro-American nationalism (AAN) is predicated on a theory of social and cultural change. Moreover, AAN seeks to provide an applied research approach to the critical examination of issues in the African American community.

The statement of the problem addressed in “Afro-American Nationalism” focuses on the Eurocentric cultural hegemonic interpretative analysis of studies on nationalism (Karenga 1976, 1). Karenga cogently explains the hypothesis of this study this way:

The central thrust of this study will be to challenge these approaches and assumptions and to off...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part I. Intellectual Biography
• Part II. Cultural Biography
• Part III. Oral History and Biography as Teaching Tools
• About the Editor and Contributors
• Index