Fighting for US Scot Brown Fighting for US Maulana Karenga, the US Organization, and Black Cultural Nationalism Foreword by Clayborne Carson a New York University Press • New York and London NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London www.nyupress.org © 2003 by New York University All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brown, Scot, 1966– Fighting for US : Maulana Karenga, the US organization, and black cultural nationalism / Scot Brown. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8147-9877-2 (alk. paper) 1. US (Organization)—History. 2. Black nationalism—United States— History—20th century. 3. Black power—United States—History— 20th century. 4. Karenga, Maulana. 5. African American political activists—Biography. 6. African Americans—Race identity. 7. African Americans—Intellectual life—20th century. 8. African Americans— Politics and government—20th century. 9. United States—Race relations. I. Title. E185.5.B95 2003 305.896'073'0092—dc21 2003004811 New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Foreword by Clayborne Carson vii Acknowledgments xiii 1 Introduction 1 2 From Ron Everett to Maulana Karenga: The Intellectual and Political Bases for the US Organization 6 3 Memory and Internal Organizational Life 38 4 The Politics of Culture: The US Organization and the Quest for Black Unity 74 5 Sectarian Discourses and the Decline of US in the Era of Black Power 107 6 In the Face of Funk: US and the Arts of War 131 7 Kwanzaa and Afrocentricity 159 Glossary of Kiswahili and Zulu Terms 163 Notes 165 Bibliography 203 Index 217 About the Author 228 All illustrations appear as a group following p. 134. v Foreword I first talked with Maulana Karenga in 1966, when I conducted a long interview with him for a Los Angeles Free Press article. He was already widely known in the Los Angeles area as an influential young Black nationalist. At UCLA, where he was a graduate stu- dent in African linguistics and I was an undergraduate history major, his powerful orations, peppered with sardonic humor, al- ways drew crowds. He had created a tightly organized and loyal group of followers called US—“Anywhere we are, US is.” I had been suspicious of those Black nationalists who stood on the side- lines of the southern freedom struggle during the first half of the 1960s, but I was impressed that Karenga had emerged as an ef- fective leader in post-Watts rebellion Los Angeles. At a time of uncertainty and disorganization in the African-American free- dom struggle, Karenga’s US exhibited confidence and discipline. Karenga impressed me with his ability to bring new vitality to traditional Black nationalism. He adapted ideas drawn from Af- rican cultures and political movements, but his public statements conveyed an appealing originality and exceptional intelligence I looked forward to meeting him when I arrived for the inter- view at the office of a group called Self-Leadership for ALL Na- tionalities Today or SLANT, headed by Karenga’s friend Tommy Jacquette. There was an élan associated with US that was imme- diately apparent. Members wore African-style green bubas and used Kiswahili terms. In a way similar to Nation of Islam mem- bers, they took pride in their appearance and often prefaced their remarks by deferring to the words of Maulana, their Master Teacher. The indications that US had formed a leadership cult worried me, but Karenga himself was reassuringly modest, eager to express his admiration for other leaders, such as Malcolm X, and for organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordi- nating Committee (SNCC). I learned that he had tried without vii viii Clayborne Carson success to establish ties with SNCC. During the interview, he de- scribed the seven principles that would later be celebrated dur- ing Kwanzaa, the African-American holiday he invented. I could see even then that Karenga would become a major force in the African-American freedom struggle. I was not surprised when he played major roles in the national Black Power conferences of the next few years. We maintained occasional contact during the tumultuous years that followed my initial interview. In 1968, when I returned to UCLA after graduation and a period of draft-avoidance in Eu- rope, the US organization had consolidated its influence in the Black Congress, the umbrella group which included most of the groups that were then active in south-central Los Angeles. In the meantime, the Black Panther Party had also become an impor- tant and competitive political force. I supported the Black Pan- thers, because they had the same kind of brash militancy that I had admired in SNCC, but I regretted that the two groups were fighting with one another. I believed that there was no necessary conflict between the so-called ‘revolutionary nationalism’ of the Black Panthers and the ‘cultural nationalism’ of US. I knew from my conversations with Karenga that he had wanted to become the cultural arm of SNCC and the Black Panthers. He had tried to forge a working relationship with the latter group early in 1968, during the ‘Free Huey’ campaign to save the Black Panther defense minister from being executed for allegedly murdering an Oakland policeman. Karenga’s group had even provided se- curity for the Newton support rally held in February 1968 at the Los Angeles sports area. As relations between US and the Black Panthers deteriorated during 1968, I saw terrible consequences of the abrasive way in which some Panther leaders—especially Eldridge Cleaver— provoked conflicts through their attacks against cultural nation- alism. I understood that the Black Panthers saw themselves as Foreword ix revolutionaries facing brutal repression and thus were impatient with any group that did adopt their confrontation political style. But I also appreciated the dedication of US members and the widespread popular support for cultural nationalism in Black communities throughout the nation. By this time, Karenga’s close relationship with Amiri Baraka had broadened his influ- ence on the East coast. Yet, as the Black Panthers began to worry legitimately about police agents in their own ranks, they also began to ridicule Karenga and his followers. They referred to them as “pork-chop nationalists,” implying that Karenga collabo- rated with the Los Angeles police chief and California governor Ronald Reagan. Karenga, like previous Black nationalists, in- cluding Elijah Muhammad, Marcus Garvey, and Martin Delany, had left himself open to this charge by insisting that all white peo- ple were the same and that therefore negotiating with powerful white conservatives made as much sense as the Black Panthers’ willingness to collaborate with less powerful white leftists. The FBI predictably exploited the US/Panther conflict, to the detri- ment of both groups. In January 1969, I attended a meeting at UCLA’s Campbell Hall of the Black Student Union where Black Panthers and US members stood glaring at each other from opposite sides of a classroom in which intimidated students discussed how to es- tablish a Black studies program at UCLA. Karenga pushed his candidate to head the planned Black studies program on the campus, arguing that US, not the Panthers, could mobilize the Los Angeles Black community on behalf of the program. I was not completely surprised when the escalating intergroup ten- sions exploded two days after the meeting into a deadly clash that left two Black Panthers dead. Subsequent police raids severely damaged both groups and ultimately contributed to the decline of the entire African-American freedom struggle. The subse- quent allegation that the killings had been a planned execution