Happy Kwanzaa!!

10 Things you didn't know about Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa was conceived in 1966 by Maulana Karenga, who launched the holiday in the midst of the Black Power Movement and a year after the Watts riots tore open the wounds of racial division in Los Angeles. (Karenga later served time in prison in an assault case related to his opposition to the Black Panthers. After being released from prison, Karenga became an Africana studies professor at California State University at Long Beach.) According to The Complete Kwanzaa by Dorothy Winbush Riley, Karenga said he started Kwanzaa as "a necessary minimum set of principles by which Black people must live in order to begin to rescue and reconstruct our history and lives." The holiday is celebrated from Dec. 26-Jan. 1 every year. Estimates about the number of Americans who celebrate Kwanzaa vary widely, with some figures in the millions.

First Fruits
Kwanzaa is not a religious holiday. It is a cultural holiday based on African harvest festivals and the word "Kwanzaa" is based on a Swahili phrase "matunda ya kwanza" (“first fruits”). It's most popular among African Americans, but has also been embraced by black Caribbeans and other subsets of the African diaspora as a way to celebrate Pan-African history and encourage pride in the black community.


Seven Principles
The celebration of Kwanzaa is organized around the number 7. There are Seven Principles of Kwanzaa, each celebrated on a different day. The principles, in order, are unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, faith. There are also seven symbols: fruits/nuts/vegetables, place mats, ears of corn, candles, candle holders, communal cups, and gifts. These seven symbols are arranged on a table at the beginning of Kwanzaa. On each day, members of celebrating households gather together to discuss the principles and sometimes read poems or perform music or dance.


On the Calendar
By the 1990s, Kwanzaa was being celebrated alongside Christmas and Hanukkah as a mainstream national holiday, with Hallmark creating Kwanzaa cards and the U.S. Postal Service introducing an official Kwanzaa stamp in 1997. The stamp has been reissued in various denominations four times.



"What's Up?" Swahili Style
Each day of Kwanzaa, participants greet each other with the phrase "Habari Gani", which translates to "What's the News?" in Swahili. The answer, that day’s Kwanzaa Principle.

It's the thought that counts

Expensive gift giving is not a major tenet of the holiday. Although the seventh symbol of Kwanzaa is "gifts," exchanges mostly happen between immediate family members, and often include handmade gifts or books that celebrate African culture. According to The Complete Kwanzaa, the purpose of this modest gift giving is "to avoid the chaos of shopping and conspicuous consumption during the December holiday season."

Colorful symbols

The official colors of Kwanzaa are red, symbolizing the struggles of the African people; black, symbolizing Earth and the African people; and green, symbolizing hope and the future. The Kwanzaa candles are arranged in a holder with a black candle in the middle and red and green candles on the sides. One candle is lit each day of Kwanzaa.

Merry Christmas Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa and other December holidays, including Christmas, are not mutually exclusive. Kwanzaa's official edicts say that it was specifically created as a cultural, and not a religious, holiday, although the holiday's official web site states that "one can accept and revere the religious message and meaning [of Christmas] but reject its European cultural accretions of Santa Claus, reindeer, mistletoe, frantic shopping, alienated gift-giving, etc." Most early practitioners of Kwanzaa did not celebrate Christmas, but the division between the two holidays has faded in recent decade.


A Marketing Opportunity
Despite its organizers' best efforts, Kwanzaa has verged into commercialized territory long occupied by Christmas, with annual marketing campaigns geared specifically for the Kwanzaa holiday. Every year, various "Kwanzaa Expos" are held in cities all over the country. Dancers and musicians perform at the events, while vendors sell Kwanzaa and African-related merchandise.


Fit For A Poet
In 2008, Maya Angelou narrated a documentary called The Black Candle, the first full-length film to be made about Kwanzaa. Directed by M.K. Asante, Jr., the film includes interviews with rapper Chuck D., Kwanzaa founder Maulana Karenga, and NFL star Jim Brown.