Amiri Baraka Black Power Politics example essay topic

Founded in 1965 by Ron Karenga, US emerged in Southern California shortly after Watts exploded into a riot and Malcolm X was assassinated. As nationalist sentiment grew among African American organizations because of the impact of Malcolm X, US established itself as a cultural nationalist group. It called for racial unity and for black people to free themselves from white oppression by embracing a 'recovered' African culture. For US, that meant Kawaida, a quasi-religious system of beliefs and rituals advocating black pride, unity, culture and self-defense. Upon becoming a member or 'advocate' of US, a person was given a Swahili name, urged to wear African clothing and immersed in the group's complex doctrine, practices and organizational hierarchy. Karenga, a budding scholar of African studies who was fluent in Swahili, constructed Kawaida, says Brown, by adapting rituals and beliefs -- primarily from the Zulus of South Africa -- to the organization's own rituals, beliefs and holidays.

Kwanzaa, a holiday created by US in 1966, is now observed by millions of African Americans. Brown's portrait is historically sharp and honest. He includes a discussion of the damaging effects of sexism and of Karenga's cult of personality. Brown's research is also sensitive to misconceptions that have plagued US' past, such as the name standing for 'United Slaves. ' The name, Brown says, simply 'stands for Black People: the pronoun 'US' as opposed to 'them,' the white oppressors. ' Brown's study of US emerges as a keen observation of how a relatively small group became a central force in a mass movement through its ideological influence.

'The group's approach to organizing,' Brown writes, 'which resisted mass recruitment into its ranks... saw no need for a large membership. Their goal was to ideologically influence other organizations with its united- front approach, and thus direct the course of the coming 'cultural revolution. ' ' Brown illustrates this best in the section 'The New Ark Laboratory,' in which he cites US' alliance with writer-activist Amiri Baraka and several organizations in Newark, N.J., which not only helped elect the city's first black mayor but also turned Newark into a stronghold for the Kawaida doctrine when US fell into decline in the early '70's. Brown is equally attentive to the stumbling blocks faced by US. For instance, the section 'Operational Unity and the US-Panther Conflict' gives a dynamic history of the escalating tensions between US and the Black Panther Party, as well as Karenga's political missteps that jeopardized US' anti- establishment credibility. Although philosophical differences were the primary source of the US-Panther discord, Brown refers to a 1968 article that stated that Karenga secretly met with police as well as California Gov. Ronald Reagan after Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination and that those meetings increased the tension.

Brown's most revelatory work is on the effect the UCLA murders of Carter and Huggins had on US. Afterward, Brown says, 'a taxing combination of the threat of retaliation from the Black Panther Party alongside police and FBI surveillance, disruption and attacks' marked the group's decline as it descended into paranoia and militarization. But the murders, Brown says, would also place US at a historical disadvantage as US never gained mass popularity through 'social service efforts, activism or effective use of American mass media' as did the Panthers. ' US did not pursue the kinds of activities that helped the Panthers become a popular icon of black resistance,' writes Brown. Without broad support, the story of the black power movement would overwhelmingly be told from a Panther perspective with books such as Huey Newton's 'Revolutionary Suicide' and Bobby Seale's 'Seize the Time. ' As a result, Brown writes, this would generate a 'barrage of anti-US allegations and mis characterizations' in the years following the movement.

Ultimately, Brown's exploration of US does a tremendous job of challenging those misconceptions. But more important, it gives the organization its rightful place in the expanding story of black people's quest for power in America. Marcus Reeves is the publisher of Tell Spin, a Brooklyn literary magazine. He is working on a book of essays about hip-hop music.

Fighting for Us: Maulana Karenga, the US Organization, and Black Cultural Nationalism Scot Brown, foreword by Claiborne Carson ISBN 0814798772 224 pages Cloth Publication date: In spite of the ever-growing popularity of Kwanzaa, the story of the influential Black nationalist organization behind the holiday has never been told. Fighting for Us explores the fascinating history of the Us Organization, a Black nationalist group based in California that played a leading role in Black Power politics and culture during the late 1960's and early '70's whose influence is still felt today. Advocates of Afrocentric renewal, Us unleashed creative and intellectual passions that continue to fuel debate and controversy among scholars and students of the Black Power movement. Founded in 1965 by Maulana Karenga, Us established an extensive network of alliances with a diverse body of activists, artists and organizations throughout the United States for the purpose of bringing about an African American cultural revolution. Fighting for Us presents the first historical examination of Us' philosophy, internal dynamics, political activism and influence on African American art, making an elaborate use of oral history interviews, organizational archives, Federal Bureau of Investigation files, newspaper accounts, and other primary sources of the period. This book also sheds light on factors contributing to the organization's decline in the early '70's-government repression, authoritarianism, sexism, and elitist vanguard politics.

Previous scholarship about Us has been shaped by a war of words associated with a feud between Us and the Black Panther Party that gave way to a series of violent and deadly clashes in Los Angeles. Venturing beyond the lingering rhetoric of rivalry, this book illuminates the ideological similarities and differences between Us's 'cultural' nationalism and the Black Panther Party's 'revolutionary' nationalism. Today, Us's emphasis on culture has endured as evidenced by the popularity of Kwanzaa and the Afrocentrism in Black art and popular media. Engaging and original, Fighting for Us will be the definitive work on Maulana Karenga, the Us organization, and Black cultural nationalism in America. Scot Brown is Assistant Professor of History at UCLA.

His writings on African American resistance, social movements, and cultural nationalism have appeared in the Black Scholar, American National Biography, Journal of Black Studies, Journal of Negro History and Contributions in Black Studies. source: web info. php? products id = 3256 3 aug 03 INTRODUCTION The history of the cultural nationalist organization called "US", founded by Maulana Karenga and a handful of others in 1965, is, for most students of Black nationalism, an untold story. The Southern California-based organization experienced a high point in its activism during a great resurgence in African American nationalism, popularly known as the Black Power movement, roughly from the mid-1960's to the early 1970's. During these years, US, a relatively small group, established an impressive network of alliances in the Midwest, in the South, and on the East Coast. As a result, US's brand of cultural nationalism influenced a diverse body of activists, artists, and organizations throughout the United States. As the 1960's unfolded, many California-based radical organizations asserted themselves, in an unprecedented manner, in national politics and American cultural life in the form of the Black Panther Party, Students for a Democratic Society, the Peace and Freedom Party, and a host of others.

US, in keeping with this trend, rapidly developed a national audience and constituency. US's story, mirroring the wider Black Power movement, traveled a course shaped by an array of historical factors, including the anticolonial struggles in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the Vietnam War, and state repression via Federal Bureau of Investigation counterintelligence operations. Internal organizational matters, such as the cult of personality, authoritarianism, alternative lifestyles, gender stratification, and vanguard self-perceptions were also driving forces in the organization's plight. Other contextual factors contributing to the makeup of US appear in Karenga's own cultural nationalist theories, inspired by Negritude, African nationalism, the Third World neutralism (or what would become the "non-aligned" movement), and African Studies as an academic discipline in the United States.

The rhetorical stress on racial solidarity, popularized during the era of Black Power, masked underlying tensions and intergroup rivalries that persisted throughout the late 1960's. An intense and bitter feud between US and the Black Panther Party degenerated into violent warfare in Southern California from the beginning of 1969 through 1970. Indeed, this sectarian struggle made lasting impressions on historical commentary and autobiographies written by veteran Black Panther activists. The repeated usage of the term "united slaves", as a reference for the US Organization, is perhaps the best example of the lasting consequences of the US / Panther conflict.

1 The name "US" actually stands for Black people: the pronoun "US" as opposed to "them", the White oppressors. As an article in the journal Black Dialogue in 1966 stated, "US means exactly that-all of US (black folks)". 2 During the late 1960's, some of US's rivals and opponents used the term "united slaves" to ridicule the group. This slur has been given, unwittingly, scholarly credence in several works on the Black Power movement, in spite of the fact that there are no documents or recorded speeches in which Karenga or any US members refer to their organization as such. A series of other writings that mention US have restated, uncritically, the Black Panther Party's allegations, made during the heat of battle, that the US Organization was a collaborator with the United States government for the purpose of bringing about the Black Panther Party's demise. 3 US leaders also accused the Black Panther Party of working with the Los Angeles Police Department in a strategy to neutralize their organization.

US's perspective, in any case, did not have a comparable impact on scholarly or anecdotal interpretations of the Black Panther Party's historical legacy. Chapter 5 of this study, examining the nuances of the ideological and "turf" struggle between US and the Panthers, attempts to move the discussion past the limitations of simple accusation and vilification by focusing on the dynamic and complex relationship between these groups. This book is part of a growing historical literature on the Black Power movement and its activist organizations. 4 The coming dialogue and debate about US's story, and other Black radical formations of the 1960's and 1970's, should inform a wider synthesis and understanding of the Black Power movement's place in African American history.

Komo zi Woodard's A Nation within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (Le Roi Jones) & Black Power Politics maintains that independent politics and the goal of nationality formation were key developments in Black Power-era cultural nationalism. A centerpiece in this process was the launching, in Woodard's term, of the Modern Black Convention Movement-the 1966, 1967, and 1968 Black Power conferences, the 1970 and 1972 Congress of African People conventions, the 1972 National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, and a series of other major Black political gatherings. Woodard sheds important light on the period from 1969 through 1974 in which Amiri Baraka, the Committee for a Unified Newark (CFUN), and the Congress of African People (CAP) peaked in the leadership of Black cultural nationalist politics. CAP and CFUN applied US's blueprint for political power and succeeded in bringing about bold new levels of mass participation in electoral politics and grassroots.