A beginner’s guide to Kwanzaa, the African-American winter celebration
The secular holiday is a way for Black Americans to reconnect with the African heritage and culture they were severed from, because of enslavement.
Ayodele Kofie lights the first two candles of Kwanzaa, representing the days for unity and self-determination. Photo: APSince its founding in 1966, Kwanzaa has become a nationally recognised celebration of African culture and community in the United States. The secular holiday is also celebrated in countries with sizeable populations of people of African descent.
The holiday serves as a nationwide communal event that reinforces self-determination and unity in the face of oppression.
Spanning seven days – from the day after Christmas through New Year’s Day – it is observed in large, city-sponsored events as well as in smaller communities and homes nationwide.
Kwanzaa has grown in popularity in the decades since its founding and is celebrated by 3 per cent of Americans, according to a 2019 AP-NORC survey.
Former US presidents Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama all released statements commemorating the holiday, and in 1997, the US Postal Service began issuing Kwanzaa stamps. It is not recognised as a federal holiday.
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Kwanzaa’s origins
Kwanzaa emerged during the Black Freedom Movement of the 1960s as a way to reconnect Black communities in the US with important African cultural traditions that they were violently separated from by the transatlantic slave trade. It promotes unity and liberation.
“It was also shaped by that defining decade of striving and fierce struggle for freedom, justice and associated goods waged by Africans and other peoples of colour all over the world in the 1960s,” Maulana Karenga, the holiday’s founder, wrote in his annual Kwanzaa address in 2023. “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.”
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 Jnr 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.
The basics
Many people who observe Kwanzaa, a secular holiday, celebrate it alongside religious festivals such as Christmas. People of any faith, race or ethnic background can participate.
The name Kwanzaa derives from “mutanda ya kwanza”, a Swahili phrase meaning “first fruits” or “first harvest.” The final “a” was added to the name to accommodate the seven children present at the first Kwanzaa, each given a letter to represent them.
The holiday has seven principles, known collectively as the Nguzo Saba. A different principle is celebrated each day: Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (Self-Determination), Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility), Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity) and Imani (Faith).
The Nguzo Saba is represented by a candleholder with seven candles, called a kinara. One of these candles is lit each night. The candles are the same colours as the Kwanzaa flag: Black represents the people, red represents their struggle and green represents their hope.
Large Kwanzaa celebrations happen across the country every year in cities including Los Angeles, Atlanta and Detroit. These events often feature storytellers, music and dance.
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Bell said the theme at this year’s Capital City Kwanzaa Festival in Richmond is “knowledge of self.” A name will be drawn out of a fishbowl to select a person with African ancestry who will win a free DNA test so they can learn about where they come from.
The holiday is also observed in individual homes, often focusing on children, because they are key to a culture’s survival and community development. This concept of children and the future they embody is frequently represented symbolically by corn.
“The intention is that it’s 365 [days a year],” Bell said. “The need for the principles ... don’t go away on January 2.”
Family celebrations also involve giving gifts and sharing African-American and Pan-African foods, culminating in the Karamu, a feast featuring dishes from across the African diaspora. Typical meals include staples of southern cuisine like sweet potato pie or popular dishes from Africa like jollof rice.
Activities over the seven days are geared toward reaffirming community bonds, commemorating the past and recommitting to important African cultural ideals. It can include dancing, reading poetry, honouring ancestors and the daily lighting of the kinara.