Another holiday of the American “winter holiday season” begins today and that holiday is Kwanzaa.  This is a uniquely America holiday that was created to celebrate and honor African-America heritage.  Kwanzaa is a week long celebration from December 26 to January 1 each year.  This is another holiday (just like Christmas and Hanukkah) that involves the lighting of candles.  The feature activity (or primary activity) of this holiday includes the lighting of one candle, each night, for seven nights.  Then there is a feast and gift giving celebration on the seventh night.

One of the reasons this holiday is unique is because it a non-religious holiday.  Kwanzaa was created by a man named Maulana Karenga and it was first celebrated in 1966/1967.  The creator of this holiday stated the holiday would “give Blacks* an alternative to the existing holidays and give Blacks and opportunity to celebrate themselves and history.”  The holiday of Kwanzaa is rotted in the Black nationalist movement that took place in the United States in the 1960’s.  The name of this holiday, Kwanzaa, derives from Swahili, which is an East African Language.  Kwanzaa loosely means “first fruits of the harvest.”

There are seven principles of African Heritage that are celebrated during this holiday, and they are listed below.  These principles are also highlighted in the video I have posted which gives a brief overview of this holiday.  Happy Kwanzaa to all who celebrate!

*the terms ‘Blacks’ and ‘African-American’ are used interchangeably by some people, but currently it is more often that people use the term African-American

The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa:
Unity: To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
Self-Determination: To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves stand up.
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.
Cooperative Economics: To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
Purpose: To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
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.
Faith: To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.