Kwanzaa (or Kwaanza) is a week-long secular holiday honoring African-American heritage, observed from December 26 to January 1 each year, predominantly by African-Americans in the United States of America.
Kwanzaa consists of seven days of celebration, featuring activities such as candle-lighting and pouring of libations, and culminating in a feast and gift-giving. It was founded by controversial
black nationalist Dr. Maulana Karenga, and first celebrated from December 26, 1966, to January 1 1967. Karenga calls Kwanzaa the African American branch of "first fruits" celebrations of classical
African cultures.
History and etymology
Dr. Maulana Karenga created Kwanzaa in California in 1966, during his leadership of the black nationalist United Slaves Organization (also known as the "US Organization"), in order to give African Americans an alternative holiday to Christmas. He later stated, "''...it was chosen to give a Black alternative to the existing holiday and give Blacks an opportunity to celebrate themselves and history, rather than simply imitate the practice of the dominant society.''"
Concerning those who thought he was adapting kwanzaa from a traditional African practice, Karenga noted "People think it's African, but it's not. I came up with Kwanzaa because black people
wouldn't celebrate it if they knew it was American. Also, I put it around Christmas because I knew that's when a lot of Bloods were partying."
The name Kwanzaa derives from the Swahili phrase "''matunda ya kwanza''", meaning "first fruits". The choice of Swahili, an East African language, reflects its status as a symbol of Pan-Africanism,
especially in the 1960's, though most African-Americans have West African ancestry.
An additional "a" was added to "Kwanza" so that the word would have seven letters. At the time there were seven children in Karenga's United Slaves Organization, each wanted to represent one of the
letters in Kwanzaa Also, the name was meant to have a letter for each of what Karenga called the "Seven Principles of Blackness". Kwanzaa is also sometimes spelled "kwaanza".
It is a celebration that has its roots in the civil rights era of the 1960s, and was established as a means to help African Americans reconnect with what Karenga characterized as their African
cultural and historical heritage by uniting in meditation and study around principles that have their putative origins in what Karenga asserts are "African traditions" and "common humanist
principles."
In 1967, a year after Karenga proposed this new holiday, he publicly espoused the view that "Jesus was psychotic" and that Christianity was a white religion that blacks should shun. However, as
Kwanzaa gained mainstream adherents, Karenga altered his position so as not to alienate practicing Christians, then claiming 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."
That same year the first Kwanzaa stamp was issued by the United States Postal Service on October 22 at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, California. In 2004 a second Kwanzaa stamp ,
created by artist Daniel Minter was issued which has seven figures in colorful robes symbolizing the seven principles .
Principles of Kwanzaa
Kwanzaa celebrates what its founder called "The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa", or ''Nguzo Saba'' (originally ''Nguzu Saba''), which Karenga claimed "is a communitarian African philosophy" consisting
of Karenga's distillation of what he deemed "the best of African thought and practice in constant exchange with the world." These seven principles comprise ''Kawaida'', a Swahili term for tradition
and reason that Karenga used to refer to his synthesized system of belief. Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the following principles, which are explained by Karenga as
follows:
- ''Umoja'' (Unity) To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.
- ''Kujichagulia'' (Self-Determination) To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.
- ''Ujima'' (Collective Work and Responsibility) To build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and sister's 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 heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle. These principles correspond to Karenga's notion that "the seven-fold path of blackness is think black, talk black, act black, create black, buy black, vote black, and live black."
