Another holiday of the American \u201cwinter holiday season\u201d begins today and that holiday is Kwanzaa.\u00a0 This is a uniquely America holiday that was created to celebrate and honor African-America heritage.\u00a0 Kwanzaa is a week long celebration from December 26 to January 1 each year.\u00a0 This is another holiday (just like Christmas and Hanukkah) that involves the lighting of candles.\u00a0 The feature activity (or primary activity) of this holiday includes the lighting of one candle, each night, for seven nights.\u00a0 Then there is a feast and gift giving celebration on the seventh night.<\/p>\n
One of the reasons this holiday is unique is because it a non-religious holiday.\u00a0 Kwanzaa was created by a man named Maulana Karenga and it was first celebrated in 1966\/1967.\u00a0 The creator of this holiday stated the holiday would \u201cgive Blacks* an alternative to the existing holidays and give Blacks and opportunity to celebrate themselves and history.\u201d\u00a0 The holiday of Kwanzaa is rotted in the Black nationalist movement that took place in the United States in the 1960\u2019s.\u00a0 The name of this holiday, Kwanzaa, derives from Swahili, which is an East African Language.\u00a0 Kwanzaa loosely means \u201cfirst fruits of the harvest.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are seven principles of African Heritage that are celebrated during this holiday, and they are listed below.\u00a0 These principles are also highlighted in the video I have posted which gives a brief overview of this holiday.\u00a0 Happy Kwanzaa to all who celebrate!<\/p>\n
*the terms \u2018Blacks\u2019 and \u2018African-American\u2019 are used interchangeably by some people, but currently it is more often that people use the term African-American<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa:<\/strong>
\nUnity<\/strong>: To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
\nSelf-Determination<\/strong>: To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves stand up.
\nCollective Work and Responsibility: To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems, and to solve them together.
\nCooperative Economics<\/strong>: To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
\nPurpose<\/strong>: To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
\nCreativity<\/strong>: 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.
\nFaith<\/strong>: To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.<\/p>\n