Maulana Karenga, Operational Unity, and the Black Power Movement

Maulana Karenga, founder and chair of the Organization Us (Us), developed the concept of operational unity during the Black Power Movement. Several organizations actively contributed to the Black Power Movement in the United States such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Us, the Black Panther Party, the Congress of African People, The Third World Women’s Alliance (TWWA), the Black Women’s Alliance (BWA), as well as Black Student Union’s (BSU) and Black Student Alliance’s (BSA) to name a few. These organizations, their leadership, and their constituents reflect geographical, ideological, and political diversity within the movement. To develop and sustain movement possibilities, Karenga developed the concept and practice of operational unity to create and maintain unity across diversity. Here, the concept of operational unity is revisited and examples of it in practice are discussed, revealing its successes and contributions to the Black Power Movement.

There is a history of Black people working across differences. From the Negro Convention Movement of the mid-Nineteenth Century to the numerous Pan African Congresses and Conferences, as well as the modern Black Convention Movement of the 1960s and 70s, there is a recognition of shared concerns and common struggles across intra-racial group diversity. Numerous Black intellectual-activists engaged in intellectual work during the Black Power Movement, addressing issues of mutual concern and interest. For Stuart Hall, intellectual work is political work linking political theory with praxis. Black Power activists such as Huey P. Newton, Angela Davis, Kwame Ture, Barbara Smith, and Maulana Karenga did intellectual work which linked theory and practice. For example, Karenga, known widely for creating the Pan African holiday, Kwanzaa, also conceptualized operational unity.

Karenga develops and offers operational unity as a practical concept towards realizing Black Power. In a September 1966 interview, Karenga explains: “We are interested in two types of unity: total unity, which is an idea far in the future, and operational unity that is in alliance with all other organizations on common community problems, in order to solve them.”¹ At its core, operational unity recognizes the diversity among African people and people of African descent and yet operates according to the values of Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) and Umoja (Unity). Karenga says, “operational unity– unity in our diversity (unity without uniformity.) We need many organizations to reflect and deal with the wide range of interests and aspirations of our people.” In addition, Booker Griffin writes in the Los Angeles Sentinel February 22, 1968,

“Operational unity is a concept that says that all of the degrees of the black circle exist. It says that they must be given equal respect because of their own reality, even if they are not all accorded equal weight in the power decisions that determine the destiny of the Black community. Operational unity says that militancy is real; Black hilltoppers are real, and even the Uncle Toms are real. They are real because they are a result of the life experiences of Black people and how their daily living has primed them to view the world.”²

There is regional, ideological, color, class, gender, political, and other diverse identities, and positionalities among Black people. Operational unity, then, is a concept and practice unifying the diversity of Black people through dialogue, mutual respect, and collaboration towards the increased dignity and respect shown African people and people of African descent while struggling to increase their quality of life and material conditions. It does not romanticize unity as a natural occurrence or suggest that Black people will always agree. As a concept and practice, operational unity must be developed and sustained through collaboration on joint programs, events, campaigns, and other mutually beneficial and collective projects. For example, Operational unity guided three National Black Power Conferences in 1966, 1967, and 1968 as well as Black United Fronts such as the Black Federation in San Diego, Committee For a United Newark, the Congress of African Peoples, the National Black Assembly, and the Black Congress in Los Angeles.

Chronicling the national Black Power Conferences on the late 1960s, Chuck Stone and Komozi Woodard reveal much debate revolved around reform or revolution in the movement at the 1967 Newark, NJ conference. Karenga, attempting to address the potential schism, asserts, “We can all keep our individuality, our differences, and still move in the same direction.”³ Here, Karenga speaks to the spirit of operational unity by reaffirming organizational autonomy and ideological positioning while also encouraging collective action. On the heels of urban rebellion a week earlier in Newark, NJ, the Black Power Conference succeed at bringing diverse groups of Black Power organizations and activists together for common concern and left with organizations building programs towards the continued development of a national movement.

In Los Angeles, operational unity guided the Black Congress, which was founded in 1967 with Us as a founding member organization with Karenga serving as vice-chair. The Black Congress was an umbrella organization of Black organizations in the Los Angeles area. Referring to operational unity, Chuck Porter of the Los Angeles Sentinel states on June 9, 1968, “The concept, the congress believes, is the key to black improvement. The congress presently works in conjunction with 75 other groups that strive to create solidarity and equality for the Negro.” The Black Congress sought “to establish a solid black political foundation, housing programs, community development programs, that will need and require the efforts of all the Negro and white community.” In addition, the Black Congress worked to offer programs that would “cover a wide range of activities” and were “geared to the local community and members of other states.”⁴ The Black Congress, then, had success in bringing together and giving voice to varying local Black organizations. They discussed critical issues affecting Black people and worked collectively on matters of common interest.

Karenga and Us played a key role in the Black Congress’ organizing large scale events such as a rally at Will Rogers Park on November 26, 1966, where Kwame Ture spoke to the crowd about Black Power. They were also central to the Congress’ organizing– sponsoring a rally and fundraiser for the Huey P. Newton Defense Fund at the Los Angeles Sports Arena on February 18, 1968 where Karenga joined Kwame Ture (Formerly known as Stokely Carmichael), Reverend Thomas Kilgore, Bobby Seale, Imam Jamil Al-Amin (Formerly known as H. Rap Brown), and Reies Tijerina on the speakers platform. As Carson noted, Karenga and Us’ support “was vital to the success of the Newton support rally planned for the city.”  Earl Anthony adds that, “The motion to sponsor the Free Huey Birthday Celebration [Rally] was put on the floor by [Karenga]… and in those days the direction in which [Maulana Karenga] swayed was the direction in which the Black Congress swayed.” The rally at the Sports Arena reveals, then, that Black leaders of diverse ideological positions and organizational affiliations could and did gather for a common cause and objective in Los Angeles.

Another example of Operation Unity occurred later that spring after the assassination of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968. In Los Angeles, Reverend Kilgore remembers,

the religious and black militant leaders met and planned a mass meeting to be held at Second Baptist Church the following evening. The call for the meeting went out by word of mouth, radio, and television. The next night, more than eighteen hundred people packed the church. The featured speakers were Rev. James Hargett and Dr. Maulana Ron Karenga. Young men of the US organization served as ushers, and the Second Baptist choir sang. The message of the meeting was simple yet profound: Dr. King had given his life for a nonviolent society; therefore, let us honor him by keeping Los Angeles a nonviolent city.

This example not only speaks to the honor and respect given King, but it also illustrates the spirit and function of collaboration across ideological and political difference. That is, Black organizations and institutions’ practice of operational unity contributed to keeping Los Angeles from erupting into violence in the aftermath of King’s martyrdom.

Throughout 1968, local and national police agencies weakened the efforts of the Black Congress by creating an atmosphere that undermined operational unity. The two most prominent organizations in the Black Congress, the Black Panther Party and Us, spiraled into violence resulting in injuries, fatalities, imprisonment, and neutralization of both organizations in Los Angeles and by extension the Black Congress. Ultimately, it is appropriate to recognize and appreciate Black intellectual-activists of the Black Power Movement and their intellectual work. Linking theory and practice, they offered concepts and ideas for the benefit of the movement and the Black masses, revealing their creative agency in the struggle for freedom.⁵ Here Karenga’s operational unity is an example of the intellectual work of Black Power activists that current and future Black intellectual-activists can study, employ, and enhance.