This year as we again observe the days set aside to mark and remind us of both the tragic passing and praiseworthy endurance of victims of HIV/AIDS among us, we, of necessity, continue to search for solutions, i.e., how to increase prevention, ensure treatment and care, expand education, reduce and end high risk and reckless behavior, and encourage everyone to engage in practices to save lives, promote health and secure well-being and flourishing for us all. ... read more »

The conception and development of  our philosophy, Kawaida, the work and struggle of our organization Us, and the people-focus, cultural groundedness and social consciousness of the leadership and people we seek to cultivate, teach and exemplify, all began with what our ancestors called in the Husia a “courageous questioning.” ... read more »

Although not overwhelming, the blue wave of Democratic election victories has washed over the U.S. in an important and promising way and it is good to celebrate on one hand, but also to review and stand ready to resume, continue and expand our efforts in struggle beyond the electoral arena. For regardless of the final count of votes and the naming of those who won, the realities of race and righteous struggle remain ongoing and urgent. And thus, there is still organizing work to be done, struggle for racial and social justice and equity to be waged and a radical transformation of society to be achieved around the central and enduring issues of wealth, power and status, especially statuses of race, class and gender, as well as other identities by which people are singled out, interiorized and oppressed. ... read more »

This is in rightful sankofa remembrance and raising up again our foremother, Sojourner Truth, fearless truth speaker who declared with great courage and conviction that she would not run away and hide from the devil but face him. And defeat his evil intentions and enslaving impositions on her and her people and open up righteous ways to move forward in the interest of history and humankind. ... read more »

Clearly, the foundational and overarching concern and commitment of Kawaida is life—human and other life and all that is related to the respect, preservation, protection, development and flourishing of it. And likewise, it is concerned with and opposed to all that would threaten, diminish, abuse or destroy life. But to talk of human life and make it real is to talk of actual people. For history and current reality have shown that an oppressor can claim respect for life as a universal abstract, but hate, enslave, dispossess, terrorize and murder, singularly and in mass, actual living humans of various kinds and cultures. ... read more »

Clearly, we, as a people, are in the midst of a deep social crisis, one not only in terms of the conditions of our community, but also in the context of this country.  ... read more »

There is so much damage done to memory and mission in our lives and to our sense of self by large and small conces­sions to the constant call to let go and move on re­gardless of what is lost or left behind. We sacrifice so much in our rush to for­get, stay in style or keep in harmony with the official writers and rulers of so­ciety. However, whatever we are and will become, we must give appropriate attention to our history, in spite of all the counsel from outside to forget the past, worship the present and forfeit our future for things embraced and en­joyed now. ... read more »

In these uncertain and unsettling times of the self-silencing of the lambs, the fearful and fatigued surrender of summer soldiers, and the out-of-control hate-filled howling of ice age winter wolves, lessons and models of struggle and resistance from the sacred narrative of our history are both appropriate and compelling. ... read more »

And as part of this process, I want to share reflections of this revolutionary spirit and radical imagination found in The Quotable Karenga, which contains critical concepts that served as foundation and framework for our thought and practice of revolutionary cultural nationalism. ... read more »

Again, this is in sankofa remembrance for our 53rd anniversary of our organization Us in righteous and relentless resistance. And thus, it is about reaching back, retrieving, reflecting, reconstructing and recommitting ourselves to a radical and righteous reconception and transformation of ourselves, society and ultimately the world as was our founding mission in those turbulent and transformative years of the Sixties. In the 60’s when we first collectively declared that we are an African people, we did not do so simply to reaffirm our historical source of origin and reclaim a history as old as humanity itself. We did it also as an act of self-determination, a reaffirmation of our right as the Nguzo Saba, the Seven Principles, say, “to define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.” ... read more »

We came into being as the organization Us in the wake and heavy weight of the martyrdom of Min. Malcolm X and in a wave of resistance that culminates in the Watts Revolt, in the year 1965, self-consciously assuming varied and interrelated roles as Saidi, self-affirming lords of our own lives and audacious agents of our own liberation as persons and a people; Muminina, faithful defenders of the people and conscientious keepers of the tradition; and Simba Wachanga, Young Lions, soldiers and servants of our people. ... read more »

Harding, like all our moral teachers, rightly cautions us to be measured and moral in our quest and constant striving ... read more »

But if there is any legacy or uplifting lessons left by the 60s, it is that we must resist these new forms of unfreedom and falsification of history and continue to wage struggles of liberation on every level of life. For these struggles are clearly the indispensable way we understand, free and fulfill ourselves and the aspirations of our ancestors.  Indeed, these are struggles demanded by our inherent right to freedom, our natural need for justice and our irrepressible longing for a liberated life. And it is a struggle for and longed for life that yields ordinary and special spaces in which the human spirit is nurtured and constantly renewed, and we and other human beings know ourselves as sacred and at the center and subject of every day and hour of history we make. ... read more »

Even without understanding it in the depth that would come later, we were in, 1965, a new generation building on centuries of sacrifice and struggles of all those who preceded us, those who cleared firm and sacred ground on which we stood and still stand and who opened essential and upward ways on which we would continue the unfinished struggle for liberation and ever higher levels of human life. In speaking of this history, Mary McLeod Bethune told us we are heirs and custodians of a great legacy," but we were not always able to recognize and rightfully respect the historical and cultural ties of life and struggle that bound us with each preceding generation. ... read more »

Whatever others may say in clearly deserved praise and homage to Aretha Franklin, it is vitally important that we, as persons and a people, speak our own special cultural truth about her and make our own unique assessment of her music, life, service and meaning to us. Here I mean not letting others’ descriptions of her and her music serve as an orientation and framework for our own praise and proper due, but rather reaching inside ourselves and understanding and speaking of her in a multiplicity of meaningful and praise-worthy ways drawn and distilled from the depths of our own hearts and our own culture. ... read more »