Founded in 1965, US (United Slaves) was a cultural nationalist group based in Los Angeles and headed by Maulana Ron Karenga. US espoused the doctrine of racial pride and the value of learning about and strengthening African American culture. Best known for their traditional African garb and the creation of the African American holiday, Kwanzaa, US collapsed in the 1970s under the pressures of conflict with the Black Panther party and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
During the 1960s, the Los Angeles-based group US was the quintessential “cultural nationalist” “Black Power” organization. Embracing the idea of an “African American” identity, US called for a cultural rebirth among black Americans as the first step in creating a more just society and a more independent black America. US emphasized the uniqueness of black culture, claiming that it had evolved separate from white society, and held that a strong African American culture was the real source of black power. Adopting African dress codes (dashikis and bubas) and languages (especially Swahili), US members were the West Coasts cultural vanguard in the African American freedom movements of the late 1960s.
Born Ronald McKinley Everett in Parsonburg, Maryland, in 1941, Maulana Ron Karenga became one of the leaders of the African American cultural nationalist movement. In 1965, following the California Watts riots, Karenga established US on the principles of black cultural unity and a “back to black” worldview that drew from African and African American roots. Karenga, whose Swahili name meant “keeper of the tradition,” formulated the core of US philosophy on the basis of the seven points of the Nguzo Saba: Umoja (unity), Kujichagulia (self-determination), Ujima (collective work and responsibility), Ujamaa (cooperative economics), Nia (purpose), Kuumba (creativity), and Imani (faith). US also created new African American holidays, such as Uhuru Day (August 11, the anniversary of the Watts riots), Kuzaliwa (May 19, to honor the birthday of Malcolm X), and Kwanzaa (first celebrated December 26, 1966-January 1, 1967, an alternative to Christmas). The seven points of the Nguzo Saba, the new holidays, and US’s traditional African garb were all symbolic representations of the ideology of Kawaida, which held that cultural revolution preceded political and economic change and that blacks could only free themselves by first rejecting white values and strengthening their own culture. US grew quickly and became a leading militant organization in southern California.
Among its African American admirers was the black poet-playwright LeRoi Jones, who embraced the tenets of Kawaida and adopted the Swahili name Imamu Amiri Baraka.
US’s cultural nationalist beliefs also attracted their share of critics and led to violent clashes with police and the revolutionary nationalist Black Panther party. Conflicts between US and the Black Panthers arose out of struggles over control of the Black Congress, a collection of Los Angeles’ black radical groups. Tensions flared between Karenga and the Panthers, and shoot-outs between the Panthers and US’s paramilitary security force, the Simba Wachanga (Young Lions), resulted in numerous casualties, including the deaths of Panther captains John Huggins and Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter. The Panther-US conflict made headlines across the country, and the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO), manipulated the splits between the two groups in the hope that the black power movement would destroy itself. Ultimately, the violence that ignited between the Black Panthers and US, fed by the FBI’s actions, perverted the cultural nationalist movement in the eyes of many African Americans, and as a result US splintered and disintegrated by the mid-1970s.
FURTHER READINGS
Brown, Elaine. A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story. New York: Pantheon, 1992.
Horne, Gerald. The Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995.
Karenga, Maulana Ron. “From The Quotable Karenga” In The Black Power Revolt: A Collection of Essays. Ed. Floyd B.Barbour. Boston: Extending Horizons Books, 1968.
Van Deburg, William L. New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965–1975. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Daniel E.Crowe
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