Come share the seven principles of Kwanzaa. Honoring the foundation of building bridges between Africans and African Americans the Community Kwanzaa Celebration will showcase artists from African and the African American Communities to illuminate the holiday through performance arts of dance, music and drama.
Founded by Dr. Maulana Karenga in 1963, Kwanzaa was created to build a bridge for the traditional African values to reach and reinforce African American and African Communities throughout the world. The values are called Nguzo Saba, which in Swahili means; The Seven Principles. These Seven Principles are the heart of the holiday and are observed over the seven days from December 26 to January 1, culminating in a feast and gift-giving.
The Principles are:
Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
Ujima (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.
Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and profit from them together.
Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and development of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
Kuumba (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.
Imani (Faith): To believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.
