[tcuoohjohn]

Well...Ya Know..That may have been Karenga's desire but he failed. I have attended Kwanzaa festivals on three occasions and never heard such a Marcus Garvey Pledge. Now perhaps my hosts, an civil engineer and a school teacher cleverly deleted the diabolical marxist-collectivist rant from the rituals with the intent of later dancing arround a tricolor flag with AK-47's and machetes but I kinda doubt it. The current Kwanzaa liturgical forms don't contain that either. Now I suspect that there may be those who would wish to turn Kwanzaa into a political ritual both on the right and the left. They have both failed fortunately.

[AnAmericanMother]

I pulled that straight off the Kwanzaa Information Center.

BTW, Karenga still runs the Official Kwanzaa Website I think if you read much there, especially the "Founders Message" section, you'll see that he's still at it.

[AnAmericanMother]

BTW, I roomed in college with a Kikuyu girl. She thought all this "pan-African" stuff was unbelievably silly, mostly because Africa is still so tribal (she thought of herself as Kikuyu, not "Kenyan") and the Kwanzaa stuff is such a misch-masch of traditions from all over. (Why a bunch of folks descended primarily from West Africans picked Swahili to learn instead of, say, Yoruba, is one of the great mysteries . . . )