THE NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS
December 21, 2023 - December 27, 2023 • 19
Kwanzaa is growing in popularity By KAREN JUANITA CARRILLO Amsterdam News Staff Kwanzaa celebrations have steadily become the norm over the past few years, with events growing in popularity throughout the tri-state region, across the country, and around the world. The seven-day commemoration of the Nguzo Saba—each day heralds an important African principle—brings celebrants together so they can salute each other in Swahili (an African language spoken in more than 14 of the continent’s countries) and recognize the value of their cultural traditions. “Habari Gani?” or “How are you: what is the news?” is the greeting that starts Kwanzaa every day between December 26 and January 1. Over the subsequent seven days, responses to that question are based on understanding and finding ways to enact Kwanzaa’s seven principles: Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (SelfDetermination), Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility), Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity), and Imani (Faith) are each acknowledged with an offering of libations, lighting candles, eating and sharing food, reading poetry, sharing music and dance, and having people talk to and commune with each other. Kwanzaa encourages Black people to take the time to reflect on themselves and their role within the African diasporic community. Dr. Maulana Karenga, chair of Africana Studies at California State University, Long Beach, designed Kwanzaa as an African American cultural holiday in the aftermath of the 1965 Watts Uprising in Los Angeles. Kwanzaa was celebrated for the first time on December 26, 1966. This past December 4, 2023, Karenga described the ideology behind Kwanzaa on the Institute of the Black World 21st Century’s “Vantage Point” radio broadcast. He talked about inviting members of his Black nationalist US (United Slaves) Organization to his home and asking them to help organize around the seven principles. “I’d already created the seven principles. I called these people together and I said, ‘We have to answer…Malcolm’s call to continue the struggle…to keep the faith and hold the line,’ so we built this organization…taking the vanguard attitude about the party. “Usually there is a vanguard organization that either turns into a mass party or creates a…mass movement that leads to the revolution. I just thought that we shouldn’t try to create a mass movement now. What we needed to do is programmatically influence organizations, help them build themselves, and step back.” Your ancestors guide you to live by the seven principles Even though Kwanzaa is not a religious celebration, it was undeniably influenced
by the fact that Black people are traditionally very spiritual, Karenga said. That religious trait, and his growing respect for the political and spiritual impact of the philosophies of Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, were very instructive. “We’re very spiritual: Black people would say we’re very spiritual, we’re a spiritual people,” Karenga told “Vantage Point” host Dr. Ron Daniels. “I stayed away from that for a while because I didn’t want…to create a religion. I didn’t want to get religious, but I had to deal with it. As you know, [my] position [is] that Black is our ultimate reality, and from that, I do Liberation theology.” Karenga added that when he traveled to St. Louis to attend a convention of the National Council of Negro Clergymen, he asked them why they were still calling themselves “negro,” and how they could worship a white god they had no relation to. He told them that “if we have a God, it’s three things: One, he has to be in our own image. Second, he has to have a historical basis with us and walk with us and work with us and fight with us. And he has to be in our own interest. “So, what does [a white god] do for you? How, over time, does he serve your interest?” Karenga said his creation of Kwanzaa was designed with those thoughts in mind. It was initially only celebrated among U.S.based Pan-Africanist organizations, but the reach of the holiday has expanded and grown internationally. Kwanzaa is now a regular end-of-the-year celebration in schools, community centers, and various cities. The greeting card company Hallmark has a special line of Kwanzaa cards and the U.S. Postal Service has been printing Kwanzaa postage stamps since 1997, when it printed its first commissioned Kwanzaa painting created by the artist Synthia Saint James. Internationally, the National Association of Black Supplementary Schools (NABSS) and T.A.P. Project help organize Kwanzaa celebrations in the United Kingdom. Brazil’s University of São Paulo’s Institute of Advanced Studies (IEA) just held a Kwanzaa-Writing Festival this past December 13 through 15, which had participants look at the contributions Black Brazilians have made to their country. Groups in Spain, the Bahamas, Kenya, Zimbabwe, France, Jamaica, and Canada organize yearly Kwanzaa events. Kwanzaa festivities culminate with participants drinking from a unity cup (kikombe cha umoja) and honoring their ancestors at the Karamu Ya Imani (Feast of Faith), where special dishes celebrating Africa’s diasporic cultures are served. That act of unity comes just before lighting the final candle on the seventh and final day of Kwanzaa, which celebrates Imani and the concept of Black healing worldwide.
Kwanzaa WHERE UNITY
MEETS PROSPERITY Step into the Kwanzaa celebration where unity dances hand in hand with prosperity. It’s a time for celebrating possibility, igniting community bonds and ushering in new economic opportunity in Coney Island.
Ya n k e e s
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