Jill and I wish a very Happy Kwanzaa to all those celebrating across America and around the world. May your homes be filled with hope, peace, and light. And in 2024, may we carry with us the wisdom of the seven principles of Kwanzaa — especially those of unity and faith.
That was a December 26 post from White House resident Joe Biden. The Delaware Democrat failed to mention anything about the holiday’s founder Ron Karenga, also known as Maulana Karenga and Ronald McKinley Everett, born in Parsonburg, Maryland, on July 14, 1941.
Ron Karenga
As Hollie I. West of the Washington Post noted, Karenga was a political activist in the late 1960s and came to prominence as a theoretician of the black nationalist movement. In “The Quotable Karenga” handbook, the Kwanzaa inventor told followers: “When it’s burn, let’s see how much you burn. When it’s kill, let’s see how much you kill. When it’s blow up, let’s see how much you blow up.”
Karenga also established Kuzaliwa, a tribute honoring Malcolm X’s birthday on May 19, and Uhuru Day on August 11, to commemorate the 1965 “civil disturbance” in Watts. Between 1971 and 1975, Karenga “dropped out of sight while serving a prison term for ordering the beating of a woman.”
In 1971, a court convicted Karenga of kidnapping and torturing two women in his organization. According to “Karenga Tortured Women Followers, Wife Tells Court,” from the May 3, 1971 Los Angeles Times, Karenga stripped naked Deborah Jones and Gail Davis, whipped them with an electrical cord, and beat the women with a karate baton. The Kwanzaa founder also stuck a hot soldering iron into Davis’ mouth, and used a vise to clamp down on one of her toes.
Before that torture session, Karenga created a black nationalist organization known as “US.” The rival Black Panthers, who made common cause with white radicals, mocked Karenga’s group as “United Slaves.” On January 17, 1969, the Black Panthers and United Slaves shot it out at UCLA over control of the black studies program. Panthers John Huggins and Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter perished in the gun battle.
Ron Karenga was also an inspiration to the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) headed by Cinque Mtume, also known as Donald DeFreeze, sentenced to five years for robbery and a shootout with police. Mtume escaped Soledad prison and hooked up with radical activist Patricia “Mizmoon” Soltysik. The SLA’s seven-headed cobra symbolized Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba, and Imani, the principles of Kwanzaa.
The SLA assassinated Oakland school superintendent Marcus Foster and kidnapped heiress Patricia Hearst. She became a collaborator with the SLA, blasting a storefront with a submachinegun. In similar style, the 1976 film Network showcases the “Ecumenical Liberation Army,” headed by the Great Ahmed Kahn, which kidnaps wealthy heiress Mary Ann Gifford.
Maulana Karenga is now professor of “Africana Studies” at Cal State Long Beach. With principles such as “collective work and responsibility” and “cooperative economics” Karenga’s holiday is basically socialism in disguise, of interest mainly to sixties re-enactors and woke politicians.
Joe Biden hails those celebrating Kwanzaa “around the world,” but in many countries, even in Africa, a ballpark figure could be zero. The Delaware Democrat, people should remember, claims to “choose truth over facts.”
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