Kwanzaa continues to inspire, empower
26th December 2018 · 0 Comments
For more than a half century, Kwanzaa has inspired, ennobled and empowered men, women and children of African descent. As it continues to evolve, it is as relevant today as it was in 1967.
Kwanzaa is a week-long celebration held in the United States and in other nations of the African Diaspora in the Americas and lasts a week. The celebration honors African heritage in African-American culture and is observed from December 26 to January 1, culminating in a feast and gift-giving. Kwanzaa has seven core principles (Nguzo Saba). It was created by Maulana Karenga and was first celebrated in 1966 – 67.
Black Power activist and secular humanist Maulana Karenga, also known as Ronald McKinley Everett, created Kwanzaa in 1966, as a specifically African-American holiday, in a spirit comparable to Juneteenth. According to Karenga, the name Kwanzaa derives from the Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza, meaning “first fruits of the harvest.” A more conventional translation would simply be “first fruits.” The choice of Swahili, an East African language, reflects its status as a symbol of Pan-Africanism, especially in the 1960s, although most of the Atlantic slave trade that brought African people to America originated in West Africa. 
First fruits festivals exist in southern Africa, celebrated in December/January with the southern solstice, and Karenga was partly inspired by an account he read of the Zulu festival Umkhosi Wokweshwama. It was decided to spell the holiday’s name with an additional “a” so that it would have a symbolic seven letters.
Kwanzaa is a celebration with its roots in the Black Nationalist Movement of the 1960s. Karenga established it to help African Americans reconnect with their African cultural and historical heritage by uniting in meditation and study of African traditions and Nguzo Saba, the “seven principles of African Heritage,” which Karenga said “is a communitarian African philosophy.” For Karenga, a major figure in the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s, the creation of such holidays also underscored an essential premise “you must have a cultural revolution before the violent revolution. The cultural revolution gives identity, purpose and direction.”
During the early years of Kwanzaa, Karenga said it was meant to be an alternative to Christmas. He believed Jesus was psychotic and Christianity was a “white” religion that Black people should shun. As Kwanzaa gained mainstream adherents, Karenga altered his position so practicing Christians would not be alienated, then stating in the 1997, Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community, and Culture, “Kwanzaa was not created to give people an alternative to their own religion or religious holiday.” Many African Americans who celebrate Kwanzaa do so in addition to observing Christmas.
Kwanzaa celebrates what its founder called the seven principles of Kwanzaa, or Nguzo Saba (originally Nguzu Saba – the seven principles of African Heritage), which Karenga said “is a communitarian African philosophy,” consisting of what Karenga called “the best of African thought and practice in constant exchange with the world.” They were developed in 1965, a year before Kwanzaa itself. These seven principles comprise Kawaida, a Swahili word meaning “common.” Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the following principles, as follows:
• Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
• Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define and name ourselves, as well as to create and speak for ourselves.
• Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems and to solve them together.
• Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
• Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
• Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
• Imani (Faith): To believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.
Kwanzaa celebratory symbols include a mat (Mkeka) on which other symbols are placed: a Kinara (candle holder), Mishumaa Saba (seven candles), mazao (crops), Muhindi (corn), a Kikombe cha Umoja (unity cup) for commemorating and giving shukrani (thanks) to African Ancestors, and Zawadi (gifts). Supplemental representations include a Nguzo Saba poster, the black, red and green bendera (flag), and African books and artworks – all to represent values and concepts reflective of African culture and contribution to community building and reinforcement. Corn is the primary symbol for both decoration and celebratory dining. Families celebrating Kwanzaa decorate their households with objects of art, colorful African cloth such as kente, especially the wearing of kaftans by women, and fresh fruits that represent African idealism. It is customary to include children in Kwanzaa ceremonies and to give respect and gratitude to ancestors. Libations are shared, generally with a common chalice, Kikombe cha Umoja, passed around to all celebrants. Non-African Americans also celebrate Kwanzaa. The holiday greeting is “Joyous Kwanzaa.”
A Kwanzaa ceremony may include drumming and musical selections, libations, a reading of the African Pledge and the Principles of Blackness, reflection on the Pan-African colors, a discussion of the African principle of the day or a chapter in African history, a candle-lighting ritual, artistic performance, and, finally, a feast (karamu). The greeting for each day of Kwanzaa is Habari Gani? which is Swahili for “How are you?”
“For me and my family, Kwanzaa is a chance to detox,” Haki Alexander, a husband and father of three, told The Louisiana Weekly. “A chance to move beyond the commercialism and pressure of Christmas.
“We use Kwanzaa as a way to re-establish our values and priorities and recommit to being our best selves and doing what we can to move the community forward.”
At first, observers of Kwanzaa avoided the mixing of the holiday or its symbols, values, and practice with other holidays, as doing so would violate the principle of kujichagulia (self-determination) and thus violate the integrity of the holiday, which is partially intended as a reclamation of important African values. Today, many African American families celebrate Kwanzaa along with Christmas and New Year’s. Frequently, both Christmas trees and kinaras, the traditional candle holder symbolic of African American roots, share space in Kwanzaa-celebrating households. For people who celebrate both holidays, Kwanzaa is an opportunity to incorporate elements of their particular ethnic heritage into holiday observances and celebrations of Christmas.
The National Retail Federation has sponsored a marketing survey on winter holidays since 2004, and in 2015 found that 1.9 percent of those polled planned to celebrate Kwanzaa – about six million people. In a 2006 speech, Maulana Karenga asserted that 28 million people celebrate Kwanzaa. He has always claimed it is celebrated all over the world. Lee D. Baker puts the number at 12 million. The African American Cultural Center claimed 30 million in 2009.
According to University of Minnesota Professor Keith Mayes, the author of Kwanzaa: Black Power and the Making of the African-American Holiday Tradition, the popularity within the U.S. has “leveled off” as the Black Power Movement there has declined, and as of 2009 between 500 thousand and two million Americans celebrated Kwanzaa, or between one and five percent of African Americans. Mayes added that white institutions now celebrate it.
Starting in the 1990s, the holiday became increasingly commercialized, with the first Hallmark Card being sold in 1992, and there has been concern about this damaging the holiday’s values. The holiday also saw a greater public recognition as the first Kwanzaa stamp, designed by, was issued by the United States Post Office in 1997, and in the same year Bill Clinton gave the first presidential declaration marking the holiday.
The holiday has also spread to Canada and is celebrated by Black Canadians in a similar fashion as in the United States. According to the Language Portal of Canada, “this fairly new tradition has [also] gained in popularity in France, Great Britain, Jamaica and Brazil.”
In Brazil, in recent years the term Kwanzaa has been applied by a few institutions as a synonym for the festivities of the Black Awareness Day, commemorated on November 20 in honor of Zumbi dos Palmares, having little to do with the celebration as it was originally conceived.
The late Maya Angelou narrated a documentary film about Kwanzaa, “The Black Candle,” written and directed by M.K Asante Jr. and featuring hip-hop activist and journalist Chuck D.
“Kwanzaa is an opportunity for the whole community to come together and celebrate the ties that bind us and work on finding solutions to the challenges that confront us,” Greg Muhammad told The Louisiana Weekly. “The problem is that not enough of us take advantage of that opportunity.”
“Each day during Kwanzaa, we are having a community candle lighting at noon at 1712 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd, led by Kuumba,” Sha’Condria iCon Sibley, artistic director at the Ashe’ Cultural Arts Center, told The Louisiana Weekly last Wednesday. “We will also have our three-day Kwanzaa Kuumba Institute camp for students ages 6-16 on December 26-28. They will participate in fun-filled, arts education workshops taught by master artists in the areas of photography, drumming, visual arts, and poetry. The program concludes with a culminating experience where students share with family, friends and the community, artistic expressions which are created from instructional inspiration. Students are usually also invited by other community organizations to perform and showcase their works in progress. They have performed at the Jazz Fest, the Umoja Fest, Celebration of the Young Child, the Maafa, Central City Festival, Louisiana Children’s Museum, and Holiday on the Boulevard, to name a few. The inspiration for our work with students in the Kuumba Institute is the Nguzo Saba, the seven principles of Kwanzaa or guideposts for culturally conscious living. The curriculum allows youth to view themselves as members of a larger social and cultural community, one that is rich in history and tradition.”
For more information, visit ashecac.org.
This article originally published in the December 24, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
