Kwanzaa Holiday: Born From Militance, Emphasizes Community

TOWN BANK — Stephanie Garrett, 62, finds meaning in the African-American celebration of Kwanzaa, celebrated Dec. 26 through Jan. 1, a uniquely American holiday that grew out of the black power movement, cultural upheaval and race divisions of the 1960s into a celebration of African-American heritage which emphasizes the importance of family and community.
Garrett, of Town Bank, attended Howard University during the turbulent times of the mid-1960s.
“The race riots were right outside my window,” she said.
She had left the home where she grew up, in Mt. Airy, Philadelphia, one of the most integrated communities in the entire nation, and was attending Howard in Washington, D.C., the elite educational institution many called “the black Harvard.”
She arrived there, to an all-black institution, as she describes it, from an integrated urban northeast community to a city that still separated dressing rooms in department stores by race, and, like many of those experiencing college for the first time, was also being exposed to students and ideas and experiences from all over the country.
“When I first started in 1964 that was the first year that blacks could try on clothes anywhere in a department store. It was the first year that the city was declared an open city, and I didn’t know what they were talking about and that meant I could go anywhere, and not be hassled,” she said.
She began to learn from others and through her own experience, what racial discrimination felt like.
“When you grow up thinking you’re equal, you can get a little pissed off,” she said. “It was like a slap in the face, because I had never encountered segregation and racial issues before I went to Howard. They were always things I saw on television.”
The founder of Kwanzaa, Ron Karenga, was at Howard during her college years, Garrett said. He’s in her yearbook.
He later changed his name to Maulana (“master teacher”) Karenga. Now a professor of Black Studies at California State University in Long Beach, Calif. Dr. Maulana Karenga, Ph.D came to Howard then and “captivated an audience of 1,000 people,” according to Garrett’s yearbook. He would go on to found the celebration of Kwanzaa.
Garrett read from her yearbook his words to Howard students at that time.
“We are the last revolutionaries in America. If we fail to leave a legacy of revolution for our children we have failed our mission and should be dismissed as unimportant,” Karenga said.
Karenga’s approach to black nationalism was different than any that any Howard students had been exposed to, according to Garrett.
“He was talking about truly a cultural revolution,” she said.
The celebration of Kwanzaa grew out of a militant belief by Karenga and other black leaders of the time, that the celebration of Christmas did not express the African-American experience.
“There are no fir trees in Africa,” said Garrett.
Kwanzaa’s Seven Principles are as follows:
• Umoja (Unity) To strive for and 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 brother’s and sister’s problems our problems and to solve them together.
• Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.
• Nia (Purpose) To make our collective vocation the building and developing 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 heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.
“He came up with the concept of Kwanzaa which is about the importance of the family, remembering your roots, self-determination and economic independence,” said Garrett.
It made sense to her and her friends in college. It still does.
Garrett will be presenting a program on Kwanzaa’s Seven Principles at her church Sunday, the Unitarian Universalist Church of the South Jersey Shore. Unitarians come out of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but draw from many teachers, sages and prophets throughout the ages. “It is a non-creedal religion,” according to its Web site.
For more information on Kwanzaa, see www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org
Contact Avedissian at (609) 886-8600 Ext 27 or at: savedissian@cmcherald.com.