As we were driving north to
Wisconsin for the holidays, we heard a radio story about Kwanzaa. We realized
that we knew nearly nothing about it. I use this opportunity to learn more and,
perhaps, to inform you of things you did not know.
Unlike its seasonal
colleagues, Christmas and Hanukkah, Kwanzaa is purely secular and recently
invented. Ron Karenga, a black liberation activist from California, thought up
an alternative in 1966 to what he felt were overly white year-end celebrations.
He appears to have borrowed the candle-lighting ritual from Hanukkah, adapted
to pan-African traditions and emphasizing seven virtues he believed that
African Americans should celebrate. For seven nights from Dec. 26 through New
Year’s Day, a red, green or black candle is lit to celebrate the “Seven Guiding
Principles” of African heritage that he identified: unity, self-determination,
collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity,
and faith. Karenga
created Kwanzaa in 1966 with the goal of giving “Blacks an alternative to the
existing holiday and give Blacks an opportunity to celebrate themselves and
their history, rather than simply imitate the practice of the dominant society.”
Karenga was a radical
exponent of black nationalism, which generally tried to create black
alternatives to white institutions, emphasizing African culture and black
economic independence, at a time when anything black was uncommon in white
supremacist America. After the Watts riots in 1965, he created the organization
US, which became a rival with the Black Panthers for leadership of the black
community. The FBI sought to turn that rivalry into violence in its COINTELPRO
program, in order to weaken both groups.
Over 50 years later, Kwanzaa
has taken hold in countries across the world. That is surprising. This
ideological invention of a competitor to the most widely celebrated holiday in
the world has not replaced Christmas. But many people know about Kwanzaa.
Hallmark issued a greeting card in 1992. The Postal Service issued a Kwanzaa stamp in 1997, and
President Bill Clinton made the first presidential declaration recognizing the
holiday. It is celebrated on Martha’s Vineyard
in Massachusetts.
It is difficult to say how
many people light the Kwanzaa candles. There was a flurry of mainstream
interest in Kwanzaa for a few decades. A black reporter from ABC News wrote in
2004 that few
people she knew celebrated Kwanzaa, outside of big events in San Francisco
and Denver. According to the National Retail Federation, in 2012 only 2% of
Americans observed Kwanzaa. But if nearly all of those people are black,
that number represents about one-fifth of African American families.
Perhaps the avoidance of
commercialization has hampered its popularization, but allowed Kwanzaa to
maintain some of its original political intent. Black separatism itself has
declined as American society has reduced the barriers to black cultural
success. Karenga himself now is chair of the Africana Studies Department at
California State University in Long Beach, under the name Maulana Ndabezitha
Karenga. As opportunities to celebrate black and African culture have
expanded with the creation of African American studies departments in
universities and increasing attention to black history in schools, the number
who celebrate Kwanzaa probably has declined since the 1970s and 1980s.
Black nationalism or
separatism is no longer as popular as it was 50 years ago. The current response
to systemic racism, a diagnosis that itself is now much more common, focuses on
reforming mainstream society, the police for example, rather than separating
from it.
Neither separatism nor
mainstream reform need be exclusive solutions to the continuing dilemma of
racism in America. Karenga’s invention has influenced millions of people,
spreading information about African and African American culture well beyond
the black community. The seven virtues are potentially relevant to everyone.
Whether you light candles or not, Kwanzaa has enriched all of our lives.
Steve Hochstadt
Springbrook WI
December 22, 2020
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