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Friday, December 26, 2003

Kwanzaa celebrates black unity with invitation for everyone

By JOHN BOZZO
NEWS-JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

PALM COAST — Gertrude Blackwell and other members of the African-American Cultural Society here want to spread the word about Kwanzaa, the holiday celebration born in 1966 during the civil rights struggle.

“We celebrate Kwanzaa because we are black people,” she said this week as members of the society gathered to discuss the celebration.

But society members also want to include the entire community in their celebration. To that end, they set up a Kwanzaa display in the Flagler County Library and gave presentations and coloring books to schoolchildren.

They’re also planning a celebration that’s free and open to the public at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at the society’s building at 4422 U.S. 1.

Another Kwanzaa celebration is planned for 4 p.m. Sunday at the African-American Museum of the Arts Amphitheater, 322 S. Clara Ave., in DeLand.

Kwanzaa was established by Maulana Karenga, a professor and chairman of the Department of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach, to reaffirm the black community’s roots in African culture.

The holiday begins annually on Dec. 26 and runs for seven days, through Jan. 1.

As members of the Palm Coast society gathered this week in colorful African clothes that are a custom of the holiday, Jim Allen said the timing of Kwanzaa made sense to him because of what he had learned growing up about his African-American ancestors.

“We didn’t really celebrate on Christmas Day,” he said. “It was always the day after. Slaves couldn’t celebrate on Christmas because they had to work."

The word Kwanzaa comes from a phrase meaning first fruits of the harvest in Swahili, the most widely spoken African language.

First fruits celebrations are recorded in African history as far back as ancient Egypt and also found in modern Africa, according to a history of the holiday at www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org.

Erma Brooks said a customary toast to ancestors is one of her favorite rituals about Kwanzaa.

Joe Tooley said his favorite part about Kwanzaa is “coming together with the family and the community to share experiences.”

The Kwanzaa celebration in Palm Coast has grown in recent years from a beginning that included “a lot of us retirees” getting together, said Vikki Taylor. “We’re getting more families,” she said.

One of the symbols of Kwanzaa is the Kanara, which holds one candle for each of the seven days of the celebration. A black candle represents the people, three red candles to symbolize the loss of blood in the struggle for freedom and three green candles to symbolize the earth.

Doris Boyd, who first heard of Kwanzaa by reading a newspaper article, said she often reminds herself of the seven principles of Kwanzaa: unity, self determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.

“I refer to them now and then, and realize that I have to live up to the meaning of Kwanzaa, the unity,” she said. “I have to go out in the community to help people.”

“If we don’t practice Kwanzaa, we’re as guilty as those who are ignorant of it.”

7 Principles of Kwanzaa

UNITY: To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.

SELF-DETERMINATION: To define ourselves name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.

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.

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.

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