Pop Culture Saturday: The Truth Behind Kwanzaa

With the Christmas holidays over and the New Year still in its infancy, we are starting once again to hear about the ethnic celebration known as Kwanzaa. Launched in 1966, Kwanzaa is celebrated for seven days, beginning December 26 and ending January 2. The weeklong festival was introduced by Ron Karenga, a black author and Marxist devotee. Karenga has a very dubious history - at best. The problem is that very few people know the truth about this celebration.

THE STORY: In 1969, Karenga led a student group on the UCLA campus known as the United Slaves Organization. The on-campus rival group was the equally-radical Black Panthers. Both of these groups attended classes with loaded weapons. Noted author David Horowitz (in his book Radical Son) provides evidence that Black Panther members John Higgins and Al Carter were murdered by the USO. There were also female members of the USO who reported being tortured by Karenga and other USO leaders.

Karenga was convicted of felonious assault and false imprisonment in 1971 and sent to prison. The psychiatrist who testified at the trial reported his findings about Karenga: “This man now represents a picture which can be considered both paranoid and schizophrenic with hallucinations and delusions, inappropriate affect, disorganization, and impaired contact with the environment.” You might think the story ends there, but it doesn't.

When he was released from prison, Mr. Karenga had earned his doctorate degree and soon was appointed to the Black Studies Department at California State University. That alone speaks volumes about the state of our educational system - particularly on the Left Coast. In several interviews, Karenga himself has denied that the celebration had anything to do with African heritage. "People think it's African..." he said in 1978, "but it's not!" People who know the truth describe Kwanzaa as a bogus festival invented by a radical, racist criminal.