Table of Contents

Foreword by Ama Mazama, Temple University vi

Preface ix

Acknowledgements xiii

1 Karenga and the Drawing of Cultural Grounds 1

2 The Cultural Narrative 30

3 Controlling Intellectual Territory 57

4 Creating Historical Possibilities 94

5 Implementing the Lessons 164

Notes 183

Bibliography of Key Writings 187

References 191

Index 201

About the Author

Molefi Kete Asante is Professor in the Department of African American Studies at Temple University.

Reviews

"Asante provides an informative background reading on a scholar for whom the Kwanzaa celebration represents the tip of the iceberg in his activist and academic achievements." Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies "To have the seminal thinker Molefi Asante writing on the legendary Maulana Karenga is a grand treat! This work is an historic encounter of great significance and contemporary relevance." Cornel West, Princeton University "Asante has given us the first in-depth study of the thought of Maulana Karenga. A major cultural influence in the sixties, Karenga's Kawaida Philosophy serves as a primary source of Afrocentric thinking today." Charles Henry, University of California, Berkeley "In this remarkable study, Professor Asante not only provides an intellectual biography of Karenga, undertaken with rare devotion and deep understanding, but also renders homage to an outstanding scholar whose work, spanning some four decades, has been fundamental in the development of African American cultural awareness in our time." F. Abiola Irele, Harvard University