Two BC members, Maulana Karenga and Hakim Jamal, began a discussion group focused on black nationalist ideas, called the "circle of seven."
Haiba Karenga and Dorothy Jamal, the wives of the two founders, ran the organization's "US School of Afroamerican Culture", to educate children with the group's ideals.
Jamal argued that the ideas of Malcolm X should be the main ideological model for the group, while Karenga wished to root black Americans in African culture.
[3] Karenga became the main active force in the group, organizing projects such as teaching Swahili and promoting traditional African rituals.
[3] Jamal believed that these had no relevance to modern African-American life, so he left "US" to establish the rival Malcolm X Foundation, based in Compton, California.
The group's ideals revolve around what Karenga called "the seven principles of African Heritage" which he summarized as "communitarian philosophy": Unity (Umoja), Self-Determination (Kujichagulia), Collective Work and Responsibility (Ujima), Cooperative Economics (Ujamaa), Purpose (Nia), Creativity (Kuumba), and Faith (Imani).
[9] According to Louis Tackwood, a former informant with the Los Angeles Police Department's Criminal Conspiracies Section and author of The Glass House Tapes, Ronald Karenga knowingly provided financial and material support by LAPD, with Tackwood as liaison, for US operations against the Black Panthers.
[10] On January 17, 1969, a gun battle between the groups on the UCLA campus ended in the deaths of two Black Panthers: John Huggins and Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter.