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.
We of the organization Us have stayed standing and steadfast, weathered all kinds of storms and wrought various varieties of good for fifty-six years and 224 seasons, striving and struggling mightily to honor the African moral imperative and social mission to bring and sustain good in the world.
Kwanzaa was conceived as a special time and space for celebrating, discussing and meditating on the rich and varied ways of being and becoming African in the world. It invites us all to study continuously its origins, principles and practices and it teaches us, in all modesty, never to claim we know all that is to be known about it or that our explanations are only for those who do not know much about its message and meaning.
A wide range of Black scholars, activists, teachers, students and community members from the national and global African community will join in discussions of critical issues confronting Black people nationally and internationally which begins this Sunday, October 11, 3:00pm at the virtual International Nguzo Saba 2020 Conference and will continue over the month. The conference marks the 55th Anniversary of The Nguzo Saba (The Seven Principles), the Organization Us and the African American Cultural Center. Focus will be especially on the Nguzo Saba and their use by thousands of organizations and institutions in this country and throughout the world African community for value orientation, cultural grounding and programmatic initiatives.
In this winter of pandemic devastation and an ice cold lack of official focus, concern and actions to address our unequal suffering and disproportionate number of deaths, there is talk of summer possibly lessening the overall impact of the virus. But even a lessening of the overall impact of the virus does not mean we will benefit equally or similarly by it. For like all the other trickle-down, “rising tide and lifting all boats pablum,” it does not recognize that equal effect requires equal capacity and conditions which we lack. Moreover, we know our problems of health and life are not seasonal, but social.
Reflecting on the challenge before us, I am drawn to the word for “challenge” in Swahili, changamoto. The word is a combination of two words—moto (fire) and changa which has several meanings, but is here interpreted as both to collect and to contribute. Thus, it literally means both to collect and contribute fire, a gathering and giving of fire, interpreting fire here as vital and transformative energy and focused and determined agency.
This is a reminder and reinforcement for Black Lover’s Day this month and each day all year round. It is not an exaggeration to state that there is no issue of greater importance, urgency or enduring impact in terms of the foundation, functioning and future of us as a community and a people than the quality of male/female relationships.
Kwanzaa lifts up and reaffirms these values in the candle lighting ceremony and in its call for acts of caring and loving kindness, especially toward the vulnerable.
Each year Kwanzaa provides us with a special and unique time to see and celebrate ourselves as African people in beautiful, uplifting and liberating ways. But it also offers us a set of principles which, if practiced throughout the year, ensure that Kwanzaa and the Nguzo Saba, the Seven Principles, are not only subjects and references for a season, but also a lived and living tradition. Indeed, making Kwanzaa and the Nguzo Saba what Seba Malcolm called “a living reality” is made more compelling by their origins in a history and culture of righteous and relentless struggle by our people to bring and sustain good in the world.
Growing up my primary caregiver was my paternal grandmother. Time has a way of revealing the magnitude of someone long after they are gone. My grandmother was the glue in our family and her home was the central focus that brought us all together.
Kwanzaa is a festival of harvest and celebration of the Good, the shared good, the shared good of field and forest, of fruit tree and flower, the shared good of wind and waters, rainfall and riverflow, of life and all living things, in a word, the shared good of the world in all its wonderful abundance.
“Practicing the Principles of Kwanzaa: Repairing, Renewing and Remaking Our World”