Englewood Ministerium Remembers & Notes DC & LA Black Cultural Centers' Lifting-up 1967 Newark Rebellion & Its National Conference on Black Power Aftermath at 50/Part 6
Rev. Joel Washington (Khunanpu Sangoma)
Published: September 4, 2017
1. The July Soul Session (Forum) of the African American Cultural Center/Us of Los Angeles, also up-lifted the 1967 Newark, NJ rebellion and that City's majority Black community hosting the first National Conference on Black Power as an immediate aftermath at 50. The LA Center's discussion theme was "REVOLTS, RESISTANCE AND BLACK POWER: Lessons Learned From 50 Years of Righteous Struggle." Also remembered was the 1967 Detroit Rebellion (July 23-27) that followed rapidly on the heels of Newark's.
2. Indeed, the LA/Us Center offered its Black Revolts discussion theme referenced above as the center-piece of its 41st Annual Kawaida Institute of Pan-African Studies, a week-long "Seminar in Social Theory and Practice." The above referenced Soul Session, then, also served as the kick-off an annual week-long quality discussion (July 23-29 past). Said annual Seminar's sub-theme was taken from the following quote, of Dr. Karenga's theoretical contribution, advancing the Black Cultural Center's rationale, as its Executive Director on the one hand, and on the other, as Professor/Chair of Africana Studies, CSULB:
"This is our duty: to know our past and honor it; to engage our present and improve it; and to imagine a whole new future and forge it in the most ethical, effective and expansive ways."
3. Dr. Karenga's contribution to the LA/Us Soul Session Panel on the Black Power Revolt was also serially published in the LA Sentinel of which a sampling of its content is included in this writer's Englewood Portal note-report.
4. BTW, the LA/Us Center's opening Seminar panel also consisted of presentations from Dr. Melina Abdullah, Black Lives Matter, Professor/Chair, Pan-African Studies, CSULA; Ms. Maisha Ongoza, Chair, National Association of Kawaida Organizations-Philadelphia Chair, Kwanzaa Cooperative; and Dr. Segun Shabaka, National Association of Kawaida Organizations-New York, Chair, International African Arts Festival.
5. Our focus here, however, is on Dr. Karenga's contribution regarding the four (4) fundamental sources, conceptually speaking, of the mid-1960s-to-mid-1970s Black Power Movement that are Minister Malcolm X (Al Hajj Malik Shabazz), Rev. & Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Kwame Toure/Stokely Carmichael, and Dr. Maulana Karenga.
6. Accordingly, Dr. Karenga writes "....it is Malcolm that first taught us the need for Black Power. Speaking from within the nation-building contxt of the Nation of Islam....he said to us in 1964, 'You've got to get some power, before you can be yourself, once you get some powerand you can be yourself, you can create a new society and make some heaven right here on earth.'"
7. Dr. Karenga goes on to define Min. Malcolm's basic contribution to the Black Power concept on ethical grounds with "....in Malcolm's teaching...it is immoral to deprive persons and people power over thier destiny and daily lives. And thus it was ethical, indeed, a moral obligation to struggle to achieve tht power in the interests and name of our people."
To be continued
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