This year’s weeklong Kwanzaa celebration kicks off Dec. 26 with Indianapolis’ annual Umoja Village Celebration, organized by the Indianapolis Kwanzaa Committee.
The Indianapolis Recorder recently sat down with committee member Sibeko Jywanza to talk about the history of the holiday, its key principles and how people can practice the principles throughout the year.
Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper: Tell me about the history of Kwanzaa. What does it mean?
Jywanza: Kwanzaa was created in 1966 by the US Organization. They wanted to create a holiday that reflected the African-American experience. Kwanzaa comes from a variety of different harvest festival holidays in Africa. Kwanzaa means “first fruits.” The last six days of the year and the first day of the new year celebrate Kwanzaa. It’s really a reflection of what you’ve been doing throughout the year.
What kinds of symbols and traditions are involved with Kwanzaa?
There are seven days, seven principles. Each principle has a Key Swahili name and an English translation. It starts with umoja/unity. First, you have to come together. You have to make sure you have a mindset that you want to work together. Kujichagulia means self-determination, and that’s defining yourself, naming yourself, speaking for yourself. Once you come together, you want to make sure you have your own voice. The third day is ujima — collective work and responsibility. So once you come together, once you identify who you are, then you identify what you can do, what your responsibility is. Ujamaa is the fourth day — cooperative economics. Once we understand how we’re going to do it and what we need to do, we need to make sure we encourage everybody. So let’s say somebody says they want to bake bread; we’ve got to make sure we go and get bread from that person. And somebody says they want to fix water heaters; we’ve got to make sure we ask them to fix the water heater. It’s really sharing your assets. Then it’s nia — purpose, just making sure you have a purpose in everything you do. Then kuumba — creativity — putting your own creative spin to it. Then the last day, faith (imani). And it’s important to understand faith, because Kwanzaa is not a religious holiday, meaning it doesn’t represent any religion, it just represents African traditions.
Kwanzaa has seven symbols as well. The first one is the mat (mkeka), that deals with the foundation, anything from history to family tree. That’s what the mat represents. Then the candleholder — the kinara — represents your ancestors. Each of the candles represents a different principle. You start with the black one, which is umoja. On that night, we’ll light the umoja candle. The corn represents the children. You do an ear of corn for every child that’s in the house. They represent the seeds, the children who are going to pass on. Then you have a bowl of fruit, and that represents the harvest. The unity cup is to symbolize everyone is together. It’s used to pour libations. So if you ever see people pouring beer out for people who have passed away, that tradition can be linked to pouring libations, pouring water into the ground. And you say those people’s names. That’s a tradition that goes on before a lot of different celebrations. Last is zawadi, which is gifts. Those are things that are handmade, or that you really, really need.
The red, black and green flag is also key in Kwanzaa, because it represents Pan-Africanism. Red, black and green is a flag that Marcus Garvey created to unite people of color all over the world as an organized front. It’s kind of the backbone of what Kwanzaa is all about. It was used to mount a union.
It seems like some Kwanzaa principles are becoming more mainstream with other holidays, such as the growing movement away from consumerism or the shop local movement with Christmas.
Yes, absolutely. People felt like Kwanzaa was an anti-Christmas movement. But what really happened when Kwanzaa was created was a lot of people preferred to celebrate Kwanzaa over Christmas because of the consumerism, and I think that’s where that aspect came from, that Kwanzaa was anti-Christmas.
In my opinion, it works perfectly with Christmas. A lot of people spend time with their family going into the new year, and it’s a time of reflection anyway. So these seven principles are a way to guide that reflection.
When it comes to Christmas and Christianity, Kwanzaa fits in nicely.
Does it bother you that Kwanzaa doesn’t get more attention this time of year?
No, because if it’s not going to get the attention it needs throughout the whole year, I don’t want it to be focused on just the seven days. Kwanzaa is a lifestyle, because it’s not just that we think of these seven things during these seven days. We do it 365, the whole year. Christmas, you talk about Jesus the whole year. Hanukkah, you have your traditions throughout the whole year. Same thing with Kwanzaa; you should have it the whole year.
I wish more people had a better understanding of Kwanzaa, and if they chose not to celebrate it, that’s fine. But I think a lot of people don’t celebrate it because they just don’t know about it.
What activities are involved in a Kwanzaa celebration?
A lot of times you’ll see people do African dance and drumming, spoken word, singing … any kind of expression of love. At our event we’ll have craft tables for the children. There’s no specific way to celebrate Kwanzaa. If you want to celebrate Kwanzaa and your thing is painting your wall, that’s what it is….
It’s hard to gauge involvement, because celebration is so unique and individual. There are probably a lot more people who celebrate at home than actually come out.
What’s on the Kwanzaa committee’s agenda?
We’ve been trying to recruit younger members for the committee. There’s a core group that’s been putting on this (umoja) event for 35 years, maybe longer. My parents are part of that group; that’s how I got involved. Now we’re trying to bring a new generation to participate in organizing the event. There’s an event on Dec. 28 at Brookside Community Center from 4–8 p.m. that’s a youth-led discussion. We’re going to give them the space to make sure their voices are heard.
We’re also trying to partner with other organizations to bring Kwanzaa principles into events throughout the year. People do the principles all year round. A basketball team is performing unity on the court. Somebody who is doing spoken word is doing self-determination. People building a playground in the park: collective work and responsibility. You practice your faith every Sunday, or every time you believe something is going to happen. So when we say “Kwanzaa,” that’s what we’re talking about. We want people to start putting those connections together outside of December.
Is there anything else you’d like Recorder readers to know?
There’s never anything new under the sun, but there’s always new ways of doing things. We try to tackle issues in our community a lot of different ways, but it seems like there’s always a lot of turmoil, especially with people with lower incomes. So I just encourage everybody to use whatever tool you can to make sure you’re doing something positive to make sure things improve in your life and other people’s lives. Using the tools of Kwanzaa can definitely help you out, but there’s some people who aren’t going to listen to that. You still have to get through to them in another way.
Kwanzaa may not be the way to get to a young man or young woman. But if you utilize the principles and relate it to them in a way that they can break it down, it doesn’t matter if they light the candles or if they chant the Key Swahili terms — as long as they understand the unity part, the self-determination part … that’s the most important thing.
The Annual Umoja Village Celebration
What: Celebrate the first day of the annual Kwanzaa celebration with this free family event featuring an African Village Marketplace, food vendors, African drumming and dancers, interactive children and family crafts, musical performances, spoken word, DJs and more.
When: Dec. 26, 3–8 p.m.
Where: Crispus Attucks High School, 1140 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St., Indianapolis, IN 46202
Who: Everyone is welcome to this free event
