He was active in the Black Power movement of the 1960s, joining the Congress of Racial Equality and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Karenga, a secular humanist, challenged the sanity of Jesus and declared Christianity a "White religion" that black people should shun.

[5] However, Karenga later changed his opinion, stating that Kwanzaa was not meant to provide people with an alternative to "their own religion or religious holiday".

[7] He currently chairs the Africana Studies Department at California State University, Long Beach,[8] and has authored several books.

His father, Levi Everett, was a tenant farmer and Baptist minister who employed the family to work fields under an effective sharecropping arrangement.

Among his influences at UCLA were Jamaican anthropologist and Negritudist Councill Taylor, who contested the Eurocentric view of alien cultures as primitive.

Within the BC, a discussion group centered on black nationalist ideas, called the Circle of Seven, was formed, which included Hakim Jamal (a cousin of Malcolm X) and Karenga.

[15] As racial disturbances spread across the country, Karenga appeared at a series of Black power conferences, joining other groups in urging the establishment of a separate political structure for African Americans.

[16] US developed a youth component with paramilitary aspects called the Simba Wachanga, which advocated and practiced community self-defense and service to the masses.

[17] The rivalry came to a climax during 1969, with a series of armed confrontations and retaliatory shootings that left four Panthers dead, and more injured on both sides.

A memorandum of the Los Angeles field office of the FBI dated May 26, 1970, confirmed that the surge of conflict suited their objectives and more would be encouraged: It is intended that US, Inc. will be discreetly and appropriately advised of the time and locations of BPP activities in order that the two organizations might be brought together and thus grant nature the opportunity to take her due course.

Karenga enjoyed a level of trust among figures in government, including LAPD Chief Thomas Reddin and California Governor Ronald Reagan.

[22] A May 14, 1971, article in the Los Angeles Times described the testimony of one of the women: Deborah Jones, who once was given the Swahili title of an African queen, said she and Gail Davis were whipped with an electrical cord and beaten with a karate baton after being ordered to remove their clothes.