Here's Billingsley:
Karenga was a political activist in the late 1960s and came to prominence as a theoretician of the black nationalist movement.Billingsley has more on Karenga, but the preceding should suffice to give the reader a sense of the sort of gentleman the originator of Kwanzaa is. Given the character of the man, one might be tempted to think the holiday he invented is a giant con.
In “The Quotable Karenga” handbook, the Kwanzaa inventor told followers: “When it’s burn, let’s see how much you burn. When it’s kill, let’s see how much you kill. When it’s blow up, let’s see how much you blow up.”
Karenga also established Kuzaliwa, a tribute honoring Malcolm X’s birthday on May 19, and Uhuru Day on August 11, to commemorate the 1965 “civil disturbance” in Watts. Between 1971 and 1975, Karenga “dropped out of sight while serving a prison term for ordering the beating of a woman.”
In 1971, a court convicted Karenga of kidnapping and torturing two women in his organization. According to “Karenga Tortured Women Followers, Wife Tells Court,” from the May 3, 1971 Los Angeles Times, Karenga stripped naked Deborah Jones and Gail Davis, whipped them with an electrical cord, and beat the women with a karate baton.
The Kwanzaa founder also stuck a hot soldering iron into Davis’ mouth, and used a vise to clamp down on one of her toes.
Before that torture session, Karenga created a black nationalist organization known as “US.” The rival Black Panthers, who made common cause with white radicals, mocked Karenga’s group as “United Slaves.”
On January 17, 1969, the Black Panthers and United Slaves shot it out at UCLA over control of the black studies program. Panthers John Huggins and Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter perished in the gun battle.
In any case, I think I'll stick with Christmas, a day associated with a God of love, rather than with a criminal with a record of hate and violence.
