This year, Kwanzaa is celebrated from Dec. 26 until Jan. 1, 2023.
According to the official Kwanzaa website, Kwanzaa is “an African American and pan-African holiday which celebrates family, community, and culture.”
The holiday started in 1966 when Maulana Karenga, a professor of Africana studies, started a seven-day festival to celebrate culture and traditions around Nguzo Saba (the Seven Principles), which include unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.
Kwanzaa traditions
The holiday has traditions that include lighting candles and spending time with family.
Lighting Kwanzaa candles
According to National Geographic, there are traditions associated with lighting candles for the holiday: “On the first day, the black candle at the center of the holder is lit to represent all people of African descent. The remaining days alternate between lighting the red candles to the left, which represent the blood of the celebrants’ ancestors, and the green candles to the right that stand for earth, life, and the promise of the future.”
What Black families say about celebrating Kwanzaa
Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Black and female vice president of the United States, reflected on how she celebrated Kwanzaa as a child. CNN reported that Harris said that celebrating Kwanzaa as a child was a “special time.”
“There were never enough chairs, so my sister and I and the other children would often sit on the floor, and together we lit the candles of the kinara, and then the elders would talk about how Kwanzaa is a time to celebrate culture, community and family, and they of course taught us about the seven principles,” Harris said,
The Rev. Glenn B. Dames Jr., pastor of Allen Temple African Methodist Episcopal Church in Tampa, Florida, told KSBY that Kwanzaa is important to his community because of the unity that it creates and how “it teaches us pride, but also teaches us respect for other people.” He said that many of his parishioners celebrate the holiday.
David A. Love reported in The Grio some of the ways that Black families celebrate Kwanzaa. He interviewed Philadelphia resident Deborah Abdus-Saboor, who said, “On the sixth day, we invite all the family over. We read and celebrate, talk about endeavors for the future. It is an African American holiday and not a religious holiday. We acknowledge the ancestors, and each of us calls out an ancestor that means so much to us, and it makes us feel complete.”