History and Origin of Kwanzaa
The African American people celebrate their history and their culture with the festival of Kwanzaa. The holiday was created to reflect, congregate within the community, and celebrate. The Festival ...
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History and Origin of KwanzaaThe African American people celebrate their history and their culture with the festival of Kwanzaa. The holiday was created to reflect, congregate within the community, and celebrate. The Festival of Kwanzaa starts December 26th and ends on January 1st, which is New Year's Day. So the festivities are a week long. The reason these specific dates were chosen were to take advantage of the holiday spirit during this time frame and to coincide with the other American holidays. The Kwanzaa celebration begins the day after Christmas to avoid the holiday buying period. The way Kwanzaa is celebrated varies somewhat from family to family, but the basics are always the same. For example, every night of the holiday a family member, almost always the family's youngest child, will light a candle and talk about one of the Kwanzaa principles. There are seven Kwanzaa principles to be discussed and the candle lighting and discussion is very similar to Hanukah. The last night of the holiday, which is on New Years Eve, is the night when friends and family get together and enjoy a meal and celebrate the New Year as well as their culture and history. Many times the end of the year feast is accompanied by candy and chocolates too. Kwanzaa has not been around as long as many of the other holidays that are typically celebrated. In fact, Kwanzaa has only been around since 1966 when it was created by Dr. Maulana Karenga. The holiday was created during a very disruptive time when African Americans were struggling with civil rights and living in a very tumultuous time. The holiday helped to bring African Americans together so they could gain strength from one another as well as honor and remember their heritage. There were many reasons behind Dr. Karenga deciding to create a new holiday for African Americans. The biggest reason was that they simply needed a time to come together as one and enjoy their culture and history. Dr. Karenga was inspired with the many harvest festivals that take place in Africa and decided to implement a holiday based on that fact in the United States. The name of the holiday also is a spin off from the African harvest festivals that celebrated the first fruits of the season. In fact, kwanza means "first fruit" in Kiswahili. Although there are many African languages, Kiswahili is the most common spoken language in Africa and that is how it became Kwanzaa's official language. If you noticed that in Kiswahili the word "kwanza" only has one a then you were very observant and it was not a typo. The additional "a" was added for the holiday by Dr. Karenga to give the word more emphasis. The Kwanzaa celebration is based on several qualities that the harvest festivals in Africa embodied and that Dr. Karenga thought were important. These included that the people gathered together to thank their creator for the harvest, that the culture, ancestors and history was celebrated, that the actual harvest was celebrated, that the new year, history, culture, and creator were celebrated, and that individuals could recommit to the community and become better members in the future. The qualities were about thankfulness for the past and the future and the opportunity for members of the community to become even better stewards of the land and their community in the future. These qualities were the basis for the seven principles of Kwanzaa. These include faith, cooperative economics, collective work, unity, self determination and responsibility, purpose, and creativity. This is what Kwanzaa is based on. Tags : thattheactualharvestwascelebrated thatthenewyearCategory : Home&FamilyOther articles :
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