12/28/2020
The Origins:
Kwanzaa is an African American holiday celebrated from 26 December thru 1 January. It is based on the agricultural celebrations of Africa called "the first-fruits" celebrations which were times of harvest, ingathering, reverence, commemoration, recommitment, and celebration. Therefore, Kwanzaa is a time for ingathering of African Americans for celebration of their heritage and their achievements, reverence for the Creator and creation, commemoration of the past, recommitment to cultural ideals and celebration of the good.
Kwanzaa was created out of the philosophy of Kawaida, which is a cultural nationalist philosophy that argues that the key challenge in Black peole's life is the challenge of culture, and that what Africans must do is to discover and bring forth the best of their culture, both ancient and current, and use it as a foundation to bring into being models of human excellence and possibilities to enrich and expand our lives.
It was created in the midst of our struggles for liberaton in the 1960s and was part of our organization Us' efforts to create, recreate and circulate African culture as an aid to building community, enriching Black consciousness, and reaffirming the value of cultural grounding for life and struggle.
Kwanzaa is celebrated by millions of people of African descent throughout the world African community. As a cultural holiday, it is practiced by Africans from all religious traditions, all classes, all ages and generations, and all political persuasions on the common ground of their Africanness in all its historical and current diveristy and unity.
NATIONAL AND PAN-AFRICAN MEANING:
The roots of Kwanzaa, then, are in ancient and ongoing continental African first-fruit or first-harvest celebrations. They give Kwanzaa its model and shared values and practices, and its historical groundedness. Rooted in this ancient history and culture, Kwanzaa develops as a flourishing branch of the African cultural tree. It emerges in the context of American American life and struggle, as a recreated and expanded ancient tradition. Thus, it bears special characteristics and meaning for African American people. But it is not
only an African American holiday but also a Pan-African one. For it draws from the cultures of various African peoples, and is celebrated by millions of Africans throughout the world community. Moreover, these various African peoples celebrate Kwanzaa because it speaks not only to African Americans in a special way, but also to Africans as a whole in its stress on hisory, values, family, community and culture.
Kwanzaa was established in 1966 in the midst of the Black Freedom Movement and thus reflects its concern for cultural groundedness in thought, and practice, and the unity and self-determination associated with it. It was conceived and established to serve several functions.
REAFFIRMING AND RESTORING CULTURE:
First, Kwanzaa was created to reaffirm and restore our rootedness in African culture. It is, therefore, an expression of recovery and reconstruction of African culture which was being conducted in the general context of the Black Liberation Movement of the 60's and in the specific context of The Organizaton Us. In the 60's the Black Movement after 1965 was defined by its thrust to "return to the source", to go "Back to Black". It stressed the rescue and reconstruction of African history and culture, redefinition of ourselves and our culture and a restructuring of the goals and purpose of our struggle for liberation and a higher level of human life based on an Afrocentric model.
This stress on restoration was evidenced in cultural practices such as renaming of oneself and one's children with African names, wearing the Natural or Afro hair style and African clothes, relearning African languages, especially Swahili, and reviving African life-cycle ceremonies such as naming, nationalization, rites of passage (Akika and Majando), wedding (Arusi) and funeral (Maziko).
This restorative thrust also involved the struggle for an establishment of Black Studies in the academy and the building of community institutions which restored and reintroduced African culture, i.e., cultural centers, theaters, art galleries, independent schools, etc. Moreover, there as an emphasis on returning to the African continent physically, culturally and spiritually for cultural revitalization, to reestablish links and build ongoing mutually
beneficial and reinforcing relationships. And finally, there was the attempt to recover and begin to live, even relive, African values in the family and community as a way to rebuild and reinforce family, community and culture.
- Dr. Maulana Karenga, "Kwanzaa, A Celebration of Family, Community and
Culture", University of Sankore Press, Los Angeles, CA. 90043-1335, (323) 299-6124, (323) 299-0261 Fax, 3018 West 48th St., Los Angeles, Ca. 90043,
Text from DBradford
Video from QBradford
