A beginner’s guide to Kwanzaa
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By GRAHAM LEE BREWER, Associated Press

Since its inception in 1966, Kwanzaa has gained recognition across the United States as a celebration of African heritage and community spirit. This holiday, although primarily centered in the U.S., is also observed in other nations with significant African-descendant populations.

The holiday is a week-long event, running from December 26 to January 1, designed to bolster self-reliance and solidarity against historical adversities. Celebrations range from grand city-hosted gatherings to intimate family and community events, underscoring its widespread appeal.

Over the years, Kwanzaa’s popularity has flourished, with a 2019 AP-NORC survey indicating that 3% of Americans participate in the celebrations. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama have each acknowledged the holiday through official statements, and in 1997, the U.S. Postal Service introduced a series of Kwanzaa stamps, although it remains outside the roster of federal holidays.

Kwanzaa’s origins

Rooted in the 1960s Black Freedom Movement, Kwanzaa was conceived as a means to reconnect African Americans with vital cultural traditions disrupted by the trans-Atlantic slave trade, while also emphasizing unity and empowerment.

Maulana Karenga, the originator of Kwanzaa, highlighted in his 2023 address that the celebration was forged amid a pivotal era of global struggles for freedom and justice during the 1960s. “Kwanzaa thus came into being, grounded itself and grew as an act of freedom, an instrument of freedom, a celebration of freedom, and a practice of freedom,” he noted, underlining its foundation in the quest for liberation.

Karenga, an African American author, activist and professor, founded Kwanzaa following the Watts Riots, also known as the Watts Rebellion, in Los Angeles in 1965.

Karenga described Kwanzaa as a “political-motivator holiday” in an interview with Henry Lewis Gates Jr. for PBS.

“The idea is for African and African descended people to come together around family, community and culture so we can be in spaces where, in Dr. Karenga’s words, we feel fully African and fully human at the same time,” said Janine Bell, president and artistic director at the Elegba Folklore Society in Richmond, Virginia.

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