By Dr. Maulana Karenga — As a new and expanded round of reparations discussions and discourse take place in the public square and in the current political campaigns, seeking promised votes and progressive validation, it is vital for us to maintain control of how we define and pursue this world historical project. Indeed, it is important to look back, remember and reflect and not rush forward thinking it’s all over…
By Dr. Maulana Karenga — It is yet another year and still the struggle for the liberation of African people everywhere continues. And it must continue for even at the height of the liberation movement on the continent of Africa, one of our honored freedom fighters, Oginga Odinga of Kenya, reminded us with his book titled Not Yet Uhuru (Freedom) and with his own continued struggle – we are not really free…
By Dr. Maulana Karenga — If we are to rightfully remember Min. Malcolm, we must seriously grasp and practice what he so meticulously taught us about valuing our lives, our work and our struggle. Here I use grasp to mean take in hand and heart his legacy, study and understand it, and hold it firmly as a valuable heritage and framework for continuing forward. Whether it is on his day…
Part. 1. By Dr. Maulana Karenga — During both the Holocaust of enslavement and the era of segregation, leaving the plantation was a metaphor, mental process and actual practice of freedom. It was a freeing oneself mentally and physically, thinking freedom and then acting in ways that led to its achievement as did Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Fannie Lou Hamer, Messenger Muhammad and countless others in their rejection of and resistance to…
Part. 2. By Dr. Maulana Karenga — The insistence on calling our righteous and relentless struggle by its rightful name, The Black Freedom Movement, instead of the Civil Rights Movement, is no minor matter. For it speaks to our commitment to freedom itself and reflects in a real way how we understand ourselves and our initiative and history in the world. Indeed, it reveals our resistance to plantation politics that…
By Dr. Maulana Karenga — In this month, we rightly turn toward Memphis and the martyrdom of Dr. Martin Luther King and again towards the enduring message and meaning of his life. Indeed, we turn to Memphis because it is the site of the martyrdom of Dr. King, one of the tallest trees in our forest of freedom fighters and a constant reminder we must continue the struggle and keep…
By Dr. Maulana Karenga — This is the month that marks another anniversary of the martyrdom of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Min. Malcolm X, who was assassinated and martyred in the 39th year of his life, February 21, 1965, and who rose in radiance in the heavens and now sits in the sacred circle of the ancestors, among the doers of good, the righteous and the rightfully rewarded. In 1966,…
By Dr. Maulana Karenga — Clearly, in this important month and historical moment of celebrating Black History thru reflective remembrance and recommitment to ever-deeper study and emancipatory practice, our minds easily turn to the writings and life work of the father of Black History Month, Dr. Carter G. Woodson (1875–1950). For it is Dr. Woodson who framed and laid the foundation for our celebration of Black History Month, having given…
By Dr. Maulana Karenga — It is all there, the beginning of another myth-making drama of an America honestly engaged in coming to terms with its racist past and present, openly discussing the grievous hurt and harm White racism causes to its victims, and making a united front and consensus call for the resignation of a governor caught with his white Klan cape up and his blackface guard down in…
By Dr. Maulana Karenga — As we celebrate each year our strivings and struggles through history, the Black Freedom Movement is always a central focus. But we may not call it by its rightful name, because it has been renamed by the established order as the Civil Rights Movement and this has implications for us in terms of self-determination and how we define our goals, what we count as victory,…
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