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Remembering the Watts Revolt: A Shared Condition, Consciousness and Commitment
Dr. Maulana KarengaOpinion

Remembering the Watts Revolt: A Shared Condition, Consciousness and Commitment

Dr. Maulana KarengaAugust 29, 2019

The Anniversary of the 1965 Watts Revolt occurs in the context of a larger history of Black struggle, sacrifices and achievements: the assassination, sacrifice and martyrdom of Min. Malcolm X; the Selma March; the Voting Rights Act; the founding of our organization Us and the African American Cultural Center; and the introduction of the Black value system, the Nguzo Saba, which became the core values of the pan-African holiday Kwanzaa and of Kawaida, a major Movement philosophy of life and struggle.

Wendy’s Window-Nia: Our Purpose Through Family
OpinionWENDY'S WINDOW

Wendy’s Window-Nia: Our Purpose Through Family

Wendy GladneyJanuary 3, 2019

Growing up my primary caregiver was my paternal grandmother.  Time has a way of revealing the magnitude of someone long after they are gone.  My grandmother was the glue in our family and her home was the central focus that brought us all together.

Righteous Reflection on Being African: A Kwanzaa Meditation
Dr. Maulana KarengaOpinion

Righteous Reflection on Being African: A Kwanzaa Meditation

Dr. Maulana KarengaDecember 27, 2018

As Kwanzaa draws to an end and the old year meets and merges with the new, we are, as always, obligated and urged by ancient custom and ongoing current concerns to sit down and seriously engage in righteous reflection on being African in the world. To speak of righteous reflection is, in an Ebonics sense of the word righteous, to talk of thought that is real, ethical and excellent. That is to say, thought that is free from the artificial, false and formulaic and comes from the heart as well as from the head. What is aimed at here is thought which is informed by an ethical sensitivity to the subject under consideration. And this holds true whether in our concern for each other or for the health and wholeness of the world; for the loss of human life or the mutilation of historical memory; and for the deprivation of material needs or the denial of dignity and rights due everyone.

Annual Founder’s Kwanzaa Message “Reimagining and Remaking the World: A Kwanzaa Commitment to An Inclusive Good” 
FamilyHistoryInternationalNationalNewsNews (Family)

Annual Founder’s Kwanzaa Message “Reimagining and Remaking the World: A Kwanzaa Commitment to An Inclusive Good” 

Dr. Maulana KarengaDecember 20, 2018

Kwanzaa is a festival of harvest and celebration of the Good, the shared good, the shared good of field and forest, of fruit tree and flower, the shared good of wind and waters, rainfall and riverflow, of life and all living things, in a word, the shared good of the world in all its wonderful abundance.

Storm-Riding With Howard Thurman: A Depthful and Disciplined Spirituality Dr. Maulana Karenga
Dr. Maulana KarengaOpinion

Storm-Riding With Howard Thurman: A Depthful and Disciplined Spirituality Dr. Maulana Karenga

Dr. Maulana KarengaDecember 20, 2018

Kwanzaa is a time for meditation, remembrance and recommitment, and the piece following below on Howard Thurman offers us food for thought, especially in times like these of great stress and strain, and the need for us to endure, struggle and prevail. In a word, it is to “ride the storm, remain intact” and dare to bloom and sense and see a blessing and way forward in it all. 

Remembering the Million Man Match: Reflections on Memory and Mission
Dr. Maulana KarengaOpinion

Remembering the Million Man Match: Reflections on Memory and Mission

Dr. Maulana KarengaOctober 25, 2018

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.

Us, The Movement and Memory: In the Winds and Scales of History
Dr. Maulana KarengaOpinion

Us, The Movement and Memory: In the Winds and Scales of History

Dr. Maulana KarengaSeptember 6, 2018

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.

Righteous and Relentless Struggle: 
Reflections on the Principle and Practice
Dr. Maulana KarengaOpinion

Righteous and Relentless Struggle: 
Reflections on the Principle and Practice

Dr. Maulana KarengaAugust 30, 2018

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.

Message From Watts: Liberation is Coming From A Black Thing
Dr. Maulana KarengaOpinion

Message From Watts: Liberation is Coming From A Black Thing

Dr. Maulana KarengaAugust 16, 2018

The year 1965 began on an ominous and unsettling note—the assassination and martyrdom of Malcolm X, the Fire Prophet. Even in the white and winter cold of February, it was a sign of the coming fire. Indeed, it pointed toward the fiery fulfillment of prophecy which Malcolm, himself, had predicted. It was there, too, in the title of James Baldwin’s classic, The Fire Next Time. And it was the topic of countless conversations around the country. Baldwin had taken his title from a line in a Black gospel song which says: “God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water, the fire next time.” And this, for us, was the fundamental time of turning when the fire would be this time.

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Lula Washington Celebrates Kwanzaa Dec 29 & 30

December 29, 2017

Lula Washington Dance Theatre celebrates their annual performance of KWANZAA, with three concerts of an unforgettable holiday show, spirited in ritual dance, song, music, and black culture, at the intimate Lula Washington Dance Theatre Studio A, at 3773 Crenshaw Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90016. “Kwanzaa is a cultural and social holiday based on the Seven Principles, which each support strong economic and community benefits,” added Tamica Washington-Miller, associate director of LWDT dance company and school. “People are free to celebrate in Christmas and still observe Kwanzaa,” she said. “We celebrate Kwanzaa every year because it is a cultural holiday that