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Books by Maulana Karenga
Introduction to Black Studies /
Selections from Husia: Sacred Wisdom of Ancient Egypt
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The Book of Coming Forth by Day
Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community, and
Culture /
Million Man March: Day of Absence
Handbook of Black Studies /
Maat, the Moral Idea in Ancient Egypt /
Kemet and the African Worldview
Kawaida Theory: An African Communitarian
Philosophy
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Annual Founders Kwanzaa Message
1966—40th Anniversary—2006
Nguzo
Saba: The Principles and Practice of
Bringing Good into the World
Dr. Maulana Karenga The season of Kwanzaa has come again,
this celebration and season of joyous harvesting and
sharing of good in the world. This year marks the 40th
anniversary of the recovery and reconstruction of this
ancient celebration which has found a valuable and
enduring place in the hearts, homes and daily lives of
over 28 million people throughout the world African
community. This year's theme is, of necessity, focused
on the Nguzo Saba as a vital source of principles
and practices to bring, increase and sustain good in the
world. Indeed, they represent values and vital
teachings of our ancestors about how we are to live good
lives, rightfully relate to each other and the world,
and teach our children by word and deed what it means to
be an African man and woman in the world.
The Nguzo Saba begins with the principle and practice of
Umoja (Unity). This speaks to the ancient African
ethical understanding that we come into being and
flourish in relationship and that being of and with each
other, logically and morally leads us to being for each
other in real and mutually rewarding ways. Thus, the
principle and practice of unity cultivates in us a sense
of oneness with each other and a responsibility to each
other, our people, humanity and the world. It is also
this principle which calls on us
to stand in solidarity with the suffering, oppressed and
struggling peoples of the world in their rightful
resistance to oppression and their just quest for the
good life we all want and deserve. And it is this
principle that makes us ever conscious of our obligation
to care for the environment as sacred space and to
preserve and promote its health, wholeness and
flourishing.
The Second Principle of the Nguzo Saba, Kujichagulia
(Self-determination), obligates us to respect our own
cultural way of being human in the world and to avoid
self-deforming and dignity-denying imitations of
others. Moreover, it urges us to define ourselves by
the life-and-dignity affirming ways we walk and work in
the world, and to name ourselves in deep-rooted respect
for our identity as bearers of dignity and divinity.
And it calls on us to create for ourselves in the
good-producing and world-preserving ways of our
ancestors, and to speak for ourselves in ways that
reveal our rootedness in our own culture and our
commitment to the uniqueness and goodness of being
African in the world.
The Third Principle of the Nguzo Saba, Ujima
(Collective Work and Responsibility) encourages us to
commit ourselves to work and struggle to build the
caring family, the moral community, the just society and
the good world we all want and deserve to live in. It
teaches us to constantly search for and sustain common
ground in the best of our moral values, to engage in
cooperative projects for the common good. Thus, we are
called on
to increase our efforts in the struggle to confront and
solve the persistent and pervasive human problems of
poverty, homelessness, hunger, disease and needless
deaths, and war which disfigures the face and future of
humanity.
The Fourth Principle of the Nguzo Saba is Ujamaa
(Cooperative Economics). It is a principle and practice
of shared work and shared wealth of the world. It calls
for and cultivates economic practices which demonstrate
due respect for the dignity and life-affirming necessity
of work, the right to a life of dignity and decency and
thus a right to an equitable share of the good and goods
of the world. Moreover, as a project of cooperative
creation and sharing of good, Ujamaa seeks care and
support of the vulnerable and a rightful relationship
with the environment that protects it from the evils
of plunder, pollution and depletion.
Nia (Purpose) is the Fifth Principle of the Nguzo
Saba and it speaks to us of our collective vocation to
do good in and for the world, and to restore our people
to their traditional greatness defined by this ongoing
creation and pursuit of the good. For in this practice,
we follow the path of service like the great ones before
us who gave their lives so we could live fuller, freer
and more meaningful ones. This is the essential lesson
of Dr. Martin Luther King's teaching on service as the
substance of greatness, Min. Malcolm X's teaching on
offering one's life as a testimony of some social value,
and Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune's teaching that we must so
live our lives that at the end we are able to stand tall
on the platform of service.
The Sixth Principle of the Nguzo Saba, Kuumba
(Creativity), calls on us to always do as much as we can
in the way we can in order to leave our community and
the world more beautiful and beneficial than we
inherited it. In this principle and practice, we
reaffirm the ancient African ethical commitment to
constantly heal, repair and transform the world, called
serudjta in ancient Egyptian. It requires us to revere
life and to apply the
active arm and healing hand to end the social injustice
and persistent suffering around us and throughout the
world. And it challenges us to become and be examples of
the new world we struggle to bring into being.
The Seventh and final Principle of the Nguzo Saba is
Imani (Faith). It is a faith founded in the ancient
ethical and spiritual teachings of our ancestors, forged
in struggle, and reaffirmed in the reality of every day
life directed toward doing good in the world. So against
all sense of despair, cynicism and the enduring evidence
of evil in the world, we believe in the eventual triumph
of Good in the world. We dare to believe that
eventually thru hard work, long struggle and acts of
deep and enduring loving-kindness, Africa will come into
its own again, and that the people of Darfur, the Congo
and Haiti, and the survivors of Katrina and all other
suffering and oppressed peoples will be liberated,
recover and rebuild their lives and forge a future of
expansive freedom, justice and forward movement.
Let us move forward, then, confident in our right and
responsibility to challenge and expand the social and
moral imagination of society and the world. And let us
keep the good faith of our forefathers and mothers,
steadfastly devoted to justice, self-consciously open to
sharing and profoundly committed to that ancient and
ongoing ethical mandate to
constantly strive and struggle to make good ever more
present and powerful in the world. Heri za Kwanzaa
(Happy Kwanzaa).
Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor of Black Studies,
California State University-Long Beach, Chair of The
Organization Us, Creator of Kwanzaa, and author of
Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture,
www.Us-Organization.org and
www.OfficialKwanzaaWebsite.org
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The 10 Best Black
Books of 2010 (Non-Fiction)
Gramsci"s Black Marx
Whither the Slave in Civil Society?
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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Greenback Planet: How the Dollar Conquered
the World and Threatened Civilization as We Know It
By H. W. Brands
In Greenback Planet, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands charts the dollar's astonishing rise to become the world's principal currency. Telling the story with the verve of a novelist, he recounts key episodes in U.S. monetary history, from the Civil War debate over fiat money (greenbacks) to the recent worldwide financial crisis. Brands explores the dollar's changing relations to gold and silver and to other currencies and cogently explains how America's economic might made the dollar the fundamental standard of value in world finance. He vividly describes the 1869 Black Friday attempt to corner the gold market, banker J. P. Morgan's bailout of the U.S. treasury, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and President Franklin Roosevelt's handling of the bank panic of 1933. Brands shows how lessons learned (and not learned) in the Great Depression have influenced subsequent U.S. monetary policy, and how the dollar's dominance helped transform economies in countries ranging from Germany and Japan after World War II to Russia and China today. He concludes with a sobering dissection of the 2008 world financial debacle, which exposed the power--and the enormous risks--of the dollar's worldwide reign. The Economy |
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Maulana Karenga: An Intellectual Portrait
By Molefi Kete Asante
In this book, the most prolific contemporary African American scholar and cultural theorist Molefi Kete Asante leads the reader on an informative journey through the mind of Maulana Karenga, one of the key cultural thinkers of our time. Not only is Karenga the creator of Kwanzaa, an extensive and widespread celebratory holiday based on his philosophy of Kawaida, he is an activist-scholar committed to a "dignity-affirming" life for all human beings. Asante examines the sources of Karenga's intellectual preoccupations and demonstrates that Karenga's concerns with the liberation narratives and mythic realities of African people are rooted in the best interests of a collective humanity. The book shows Karenga to be an intellectual giant willing to practice his theories in order to manifest his intense emotional attachment to culture, truth, and justice. Asante's enlightening presentation and riveting critique of Karenga's works reveal a compelling account of a thinker whose contributions extend far beyond the Academy. Although Karenga began his career as a student activist, a civil rights leader, a Pan Africanist, and a culturalist, he ultimately succeeds in turning his fierce commitment to truth toward dissecting political, social, and ethical issues. Asante carefully analyzes Karenga's important works on Black Studies, but also his earlier works on culture and his later works on ethics, such as The Husia, and Odu Ifa: The Ethical Teachings.
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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posted 26 December 2006
/ update 25 November 2011
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