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Festival remains vibrant in Valley
The annual celebration will take place Saturday through Jan. 1.
YOUNGSTOWN — Many area residents are preparing to partake in the Kwanzaa celebration, an annual event in the Youngstown area for more than four decades.
Kwanzaa, a black American tradition, consists of seven days of celebration, each day representing a separate cultural value. It was created by Ron Karenga, a California professor, and was first celebrated in 1966.
Though the first Kwanzaa celebration took place in 1966, it was first celebrated locally in 1968 by Dr. Ron Daniels, a college professor and Youngstown native, and Freedom Inc., which he founded.
Lynette Miller, an educator in the Youngstown school system and founder of the youth group Harambee Coalition, participated in that first local Kwanzaa celebration. She said the idea seemed radical to many people at the time, but it was the perfect idea to her and many other young college students.
“We were college students at that time. I was young and involved in liberation and struggle movements. I adapted to Kwanzaa because it just made a lot of sense to me for my people,” she said.
Miller, through her work with Harambee, has been instrumental in keeping the celebration going strong locally. She teaches the seven principles of Kwanzaa to youth groups and students and is pleasantly surprised to see how the Kwanzaa celebration has grown locally and nationally over the years.
“Millions of people celebrate Kwanzaa throughout the world. I was just in Florida, and you can see Kwanzaa at Disney World and Universal Studios. When I go to schools and talk, I ask how many have heard of Kwanzaa, and all the kids raise their hands. I used to have to teach what it means,” said Miller.
Kwanzaa’s origins are in the first harvest celebrations of Africa from which it takes its name. The name Kwanzaa is derived from the phrase matunda ya kwanza, which means “first fruits” in Swahili.
The seven principles:
UUmoja (unity): To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.
UKujichagulia (self-determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.
UUjima (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.
UUjamaa (cooperative economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.
UNia (purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
UKuumba (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 that which we inherited.
UImani (faith): To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle. This final day includes a karamu (community feast).
Though the Kwanzaa celebration has its roots in African culture, Miller explains that the celebration is one for all people.
“It’s an African-American celebration, but others can join us in this celebration,” she said. “Those principles are something that everyone can live by because it is based on sharing, unity and working together.”
jgoodwin@vindy.com