The Zawadi Cultural Collective and Zawadi Troop 3246 presented Black in the Valley’s Kwanzaa Marketplace and Celebration on Dec. 7. The event featured Santa, an indoor marketplace, food vendors, music and line dancing, a Kwanzaa village and play area, and a toy giveaway for ages 3 through 18.
As we move into May, the month of Nana Haji Malcolm’s coming into being, I would like to share some thoughts from this text in commemoration and celebration of his radically instructive and uplifting life and legacy.
Inglewood’s one and only wine bar 1010 Wine hosted a two-night seven-course wine dinner to commemorate the rich history of Kwanzaa.
In the tradition of our ancestors, again and at the beginning of this new year of our people 6263 AFE, we pause and pay rightful homage to the beautiful, strong and unbreakable bridges, past and present, that carried us over.
There is a period during the holiday season dedicated to African Americans; Kwanzaa—defined as “first” in Swahili— is known among all ethnicities. Highlighting African heritage, Kwanzaa carries the salt of a culture unearthed and conditioned, allowing new thoughts of deep reflection on the origins of the collective community.
It is said that the defeat of Donald Trump signals that the country is ready for a change, but we have not been given on the nightly news, on social media or by mail, anything that resembles a comprehensive view of what the change might look like. Nor have we heard from the academy, Congress, or the corporate world anything beyond convenient confessions that Black lives do indeed matter.
Thanksgiving, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s wouldn’t be complete without soul food, a dish carrying hope and love for generations. The tradition of soul food begins with enslaved Africans; passing down the spirit of celebration amid their conditions, by creating dishes that brought joy into their household.
The 45th edition of what organizers say is the world’s oldest Kwanzaa procession was held today in South Los Angeles to mark the start of the seven-day African-American festival.
The Robey Theatre Company presents “Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Unity,” a free virtual play that explores how Kwanzaa can unite people on a global level and help them embrace their differences.
The Lula Washington Dance Theatre will present its annual Kwanzaa dance concert on Crenshaw Blvd. with celebrations this year with a twist. The concert will be outside!!
Min. Malcolm cites the police violence approved by the White public; the educational system that savages the mind and breaks the spirit of our children and youth; the political system that suppresses our voice and vote; the media that distorts and criminalizes our identity and interests; an economy that exploits and deprives us of a life of dignity and decency; and the churches which abandon their moral responsibility to support and ally in radical struggle with the downtrodden, poor and disempowered. He speaks too of not only the domestic problem and oppression posed by racism, but also its reach abroad as imperialism and colonialism and the damage and devastation this imposes on the lives and lands of the people, whether in brutally occupied Haiti, Palestine or Uighur land (Xijiang) in China.
As we celebrate International Labor Day, May 1, and pay homage to the awesome sacrifices and costly struggles of Black workers and other workers of the world to get economic justice, it is important to remember A. Philip Randolph’s admonition that the struggle for freedom and justice is always an unfinished fact.
But in spite of this coming together of these factors to yield this important victory, let’s not imagine it’s more than it is. It is a major victory, but a single victory.
The current conversations concerning the urgency and need to unite the nation must always be undergirded and informed by a parallel recognition of the urgent and unavoidable need of an inclusive and substantive justice. For there can be no real, moral or meaningful unity without justice. As we know from centuries of sustained struggle and reflection, without justice there can be no peace, only an imposed order, a coerced and counterfeit unity. For both unity and peace are the products of the practice and presence of justice, an inclusive and substantive justice. To speak of substantive justice is to speak of a justice that rightfully gives each and all their due, not simply a procedural justice that goes through legal procedures that may not produce a rightful result or process.
Heri za Kwanzaa, Happy Kwanzaa to African people everywhere throughout the global African community. We bring you Kwanzaa greetings of celebration, solidarity, and continuing struggle for good in the world. Kwanzaa is a special season and celebration of our sacred and expansive selves as African people. It is a unique pan-African time of remembrance, reflection, reaffirmation, and recommitment. It is a special and unique time to remember and honor our ancestors; to reflect on what it means to be African and human in the most expansive and meaningful sense; and to reaffirm the sacred beauty and goodness of ourselves and the rightfulness of our relentless struggle to be ourselves and free ourselves and contribute to an ever-expanding realm of freedom, justice and caring in the world. And Kwanzaa is a special and unique time and pan-African space to recommit ourselves to our highest values that teach us to live our lives, do our work, and wage our struggles in dignity-affirming, life-enhancing, and world-preserving ways as we continue forward on the upward paths of our honored ancestors.