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Tuesday, December 26, 2023
Kwanzaa Week begins: Black celebration, LA
Daily News; Crystal Q., CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Kwanzaa [a newer American holiday tradition] celebrates African American and Pan-African culture, history, family, and community.
The holiday was created in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Ron Karenga, a professor of Africana Studies at Cal State Long Beach, Los Angeles, and is typically observed on the week between Christmas and New Year’s, starting on Dec. 26.
The holiday has roots in both traditional and modern celebrations throughout Africa and promotes values including unity, self-determination, purpose, faith, and creativity — known as part of the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa.
In a letter published this week in the Los Angeles Sentinel, Prof. Karenga delivers an annual message wishing Africans peace and solidarity, particularly in the ongoing struggle for freedom and equality:
Woman worships Ra-Horakhty who blesses her with rays of light (Taperet stele, Africa/Kemet)
They'll have you siding with oppressors (MX)
“Kwanzaa was conceived and born in the womb, work and transformative struggles of the Black Freedom Movement…shaped by that defining decade of fierce strivings and struggles for freedom, justice and associated goods waged by Africans and other peoples of color all over the world in the 1960s,” Dr. Karenga writes.
“Kwanzaa thus came into being, grounded itself and grew as an act of freedom, an instrument of freedom, a celebration of freedom and a practice of freedom.”
The name “Kwanzaa” is derived from the Swahili phrase, “matunda ya kwanza.” At home, families can also celebrate with feasts, daily activities, reading books, or watching films that relate to the seven principles.
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