SUNO celebrates its Kwanzaa Festival with an Edutainment for New Orleans’ youth
3rd December 2018 · 0 Comments
By C.C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Writer
The Center for African and African American Studies (CAAAS) at Southern University of New Orleans on November 12, celebrated the beginning of Kwanzaa with a showcase of the much celebrated “El Hajj Malik: A Play About Malcolm X.”
The play written by Norbert R. Davidson, Jr., local playwright, author and SUNO Chair of Arts & Humanities Department and directed by Anthony Bean, founder of the Anthony Bean Community Theater & Acting School, entertained and educated local youth from St. Mary’s Academy, St. Katharine Drexel Preparatory School, Martin Behrman Charter School and L.B. Landry-O.P. Walker High School, as well as a packed audience comprised of community members, academics, and actors/actresses from all generations.
The afternoon’s host, Dr. Clyde C. Robertson, associate professor and director of the CAAAS at SUNO, greeted visitors and spoke of the importance of what he called the “communiversity” seated before him. “The theme of this Festival of Kwanzaa is UMOJA (Unity), the first principal of Kwanzaa. For us that means one campus, one community and one world. In Pan-Africanism one man exemplifies Umoja, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, or Malcolm X, as most know him. Our presentation of the play is a way to study him and his impact on the world,” Robertson explains.
The event began with the African ritual of the pouring of libations (water) to honor the ancestors. Dr. Ben Robertson, assistant professor of Social Work said, “I pray every child can reach their highest potential,” as he poured out blessings from the ancestors to the youth.
Dr. Lisa Mims-Devezin, SUNO Chancellor, greeted the audience. “Togetherness is empowering. Kwanzaa is not just about unity,” she tells the youth “It’s about what you will do. I want you to be the next CEOs but also the next entrepreneurs. Each one of you has the ability to do great things. You just have to want it. This play demonstrates what we’re capable of, young people. Your steps are ordered. Take charge of your life.” Devezin invited everyone to come back to SUNO for future programming in the soon to be opened 900-seat state-of-the-art auditorium.
Additional speakers included Dr. Brenda Jackson, vice-chancellor, Hannah Turner, a SUNO education major, who explained Kwanzaa, David Walker, history major, who discussed Malcolm X, Alton Harris, education major, who introduced playwright Norbert Davidson, Jr., and Anthony Bean, who received the prestigious August Wilson American Century Cycle Award, from the Pittsburg Post- Gazette and August Wilson House. Bean’s theater was one of only 15 theaters, nationwide, to get the honor.
The celebration of Kwanzaa has its roots in the U.S. Dr. Maulana Karenga, professor and chair of the Department of Afri-can Studies at California State University, Long Beach, who founded the African ritual 52 years.
The name Kwanzaa comes from a phrase of Swahili origin, “Matunda Ya Kwanza,” and translates as “First Fruits of the Harvest.” The holiday is actually based on African agricultural rites and communal activities. One of the holiday’s main goals is to cause those of African descent to look back to their cultural roots as a source of celebration.
“How do each and all of us participate in building the good community, society and world we all want and deserve to live in? The solution Kwanzaa offers is serious and sustained practice of the Nguzo Saba, the Seven Principles: Umoja (Unity); Kujichagulia (Self-Determination); Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility); Ujamaa (Coopera-tive Economics); Nia (Purpose); Kuumba (Creativity); and Imani (Faith),” Karenga said during a 2017 Kwanzaa celebration.
Davidson, a native New Orleanian, co-founded the Dashiki Theater at Dillard University in 1968. He mounted “El Hajj Malik” during the 1969-70 theater season. “El Hajj Malik” has been heralded as one of the most significant plays every written about Malcolm X and has been presented across the U.S., in the Caribbean, France, and Germany. The play was also staged in West Africa by a Black drama group from the University of California-Berkeley.
Directed by Anthony Bean, the cast of “El Hajj Malik” included actors Sean Beard, Monique Christy, Helena Francis, Donna M. King, DC Paul, and Dominique Randolph.
After the performance, Davidson took questions from the audience. One young man asked what motivated and inspired him to write the play. This grew out of an acting class I was involved in, when I was at Sanford University. The acting teacher had the paperback version of the Autobiography of Malcolm X. It had just come out. The professor told the class it would be a good idea to do improvisations of the book. The improvisations didn’t work. So, it started going around in my mind to do a play about Malcolm X that would have some drive and some focus. That’s how it came about,” Davidson explains.
SUNO’s Center for African and African American Studies drew on the historic beginnings of Kwanzaa, when it decided to present “El Hajj Malik,” the play.
It was Malcolm X, who inspired Karenga to embrace Pan-Africanism and African culture; which led to the founding of Kwanzaa.
“Malcolm was the major African-American thinker that influenced me in terms of nationalism and Pan-Africanism. As you know, towards the end, when Malcolm is expanding his concept of Islam and of nationalism, he stresses Pan-Africanism in a particular way. And he argues that, and this is where we have the whole idea that cultural revolution and the need for revolution, he argues that we need a cultural revolution, he argues that we must return to Africa culturally and spiritually, even if we can’t go physically,” Karenga explains.
In 1965, Maulana Karenga and Malcom X’s cousin Hakim Jamal founded the Black Nationalist organization entitled US, as in “Us and Them.” This organization was committed to the cause of Black cultural unity. Eventually, due to a difference in vision for the organization, Hakim Jamal went on to found the Malcolm X Foundation, based primarily on the teachings and ideology of Malcolm X, while Maulana Karenga continued to root US primarily in Pan-Africanism, African culture and African teachings. Karenga launched the first Kwanzaa Celebration in 1966.
CAAAS’ Kwanzaa Festival was the department’s last 2018 event. Next year, CAAAS will host the CAAAS Honors Living Legend Malik Rahim, Friday, January 18, 2019; Charles Frye Memorial Lecture with Donna Brazile’s Keynote Address: “Can the Democratic Party Continue to Usher African Americans into the American Mainstream?” Monday, February 11, 2019, and Keynote Speaker Raynard Sanders, PhD on “Rallying the Community Around Public Education Reform in New Orleans,” Monday, February 18, 2019.
This article originally published in the December 3, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
