Happy Kwanzaa by Teddy Pendergrass.
Today is the second day of Kwanzaa which
was created in 1966 during the blossoming of a period of Black Nationalism by Maulana
Karenga, a Black studies scholar
and a leading Los Angeles militant
who was born Ron Everett in Parsonsburg, Maryland on July 14,1941
Beginning on December 26 and running
through January 1, candles are lit
representing African values. Each of the values is given a Swahili name. Today is day two—Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) “To define and name ourselves, as
well as to create and speak for ourselves.”
Karenga was a graduate student in
1965 and already a veteran of several civil
rights organizations when he
became influenced by Malcom X in
developing African-American unity, cultural pride, and a separatist militancy. He was involved in many activities and
organizations and was regarded as a rising intellectual
leader.
Kwanzaa was designed in instill
those values in a community he feared was still too dominated by “alien” white ideology and religion. It was to “give 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.” The name is derived
from the Swahili for first fruit celebration, matunda
ya kwanza.
Karenga used Swahili as the ritual language of its operations
because it is a pan-African language,
the most widely spoken of Sub-Saharan
African tongues. But it is an East African language as are the customs on which the celebration was
based. The vast majority of African-Americans trace their lineage
to the trans-Atlantic slave trade and
West Africa, very culturally and linguistically distinct from the
east. Critics in the Black community charged that he could have taken
inspiration from instead from the West African empires and kingdoms. But Karenga was a student of Swahili and the
east, and not of the slave trade or origins of his own people.
The celebration, centered around
lighting candles in the home over seven days, obviously is borrowed from Jewish
Chanukah traditions, but Karenga has barely acknowledged that obvious
parallel.
Karenga at first frankly hoped that
his new celebration would supplant Christmas
and New Year’s, both in his
opinion instruments of White oppression. But the deep connection of the Black
community to the Church and to its
celebrations stood in the way of the spread of his new observance. Also, his allies in nationalism among Muslims, both followers of Malcom X’s
traditional Islam and the Nation of Islam—the Black Muslims—also objected to Karenga’s non-theism and hostility to religion.
After 1970 Karenga changed his tune and now emphasizes
that it is a secular observation
that does not conflict with or contradict religious celebrations. “Kwanzaa was not created to give people an
alternative to their own religion or religious holiday,” he wrote in 1994.
With that adaptation, Kwanzaa began
to spread rapidly. It was easy for
families to adopt for private observation.
Most of those families also have a Christmas
tree in the corner. Public
observations came to include many at major Black Churches.
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Kwanza candles and associated symbols and books.
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Candles are lit every night for the
seven values. Materials are available
for study and reflection. Songs and
poems have been written. The values are:
· Umoja (Unity): To
strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
· Kujichagulia (Self-Determination):
To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for
ourselves.
· Ujima (Collective Work and
Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our
brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems, and to solve them together.
· Ujamaa (Cooperative
Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other
businesses and to profit from them together.
· Nia (Purpose): To
make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in
order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
· Kuumba (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 we inherited it.
· Imani (Faith):
To believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our
leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.
The final night concludes with a feast and gift giving.
The spread of the observance was
aided, ironically, in no small part to the attention given it in the
mainstream, white dominated media,
especially local television news coverage
in major urban centers. The attention
always made the celebration seem much more pervasive than it ever was.
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Karenga, founder and leader of US/Organization, a
rival to the Black Panthers for leadership of the Black Nationalist
movement.
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Karenga himself became a controversial and polarizing figure among Black militants and nationalists. The group
that he founded in 1965 and led—US / Organization became a bitter rival to the Black Panther Party for leadership and influence in the West Coast African-American
community. That rivalry escalated into
several episodes of violence including
shootings, bombings, attacks on rival meetings and at least four murders.
In 1971 Karenga was convicted of kidnapping and sexually
torturing Deborah Jones and Gail
Davis. Karenga’s estranged wife, Brenda Lorraine Karenga, testified that she had participated in the
abuse. Karenga claimed that the women
were plotting against him and were part of the FBI COINTELPRO harassment that sought to stoke divisions in the
Black community. He denied claims of
abuse.
He was sentenced to ten years in prison
and held at the California Men’s Colony
until he was released with the support of high profile Black state politicians and office holders. While he was in prison his organization fell
apart and the reputation of Kwanzaa was damaged. Karenga seldom speaks about the conviction,
except to note that he was once a political
prisoner. The episode is left out of
his autobiography and on the Kwanzaa
web page.
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Kwanzaa founder Dr. Maulana Karenga in a recent photo.
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Upon being released, Karenga devoted
himself to an organization promoting Kwanzaa.
He finished one PhD. at United States International University
(now Alliant International University)
and a second at UCLA. He is now the Chair of the Africana
Studies Department at California
State University, Long Beach,
the Director of the Kawaida Institute for Pan African Studies, and the author of several books.
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Although there are many public observances and programs, Kwanzaa remains at its heart a home celebration with family
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Despite its ups and downs, Kwanzaa
remains meaningful and is an inspiration for many in the Black Community.
Several songs have been written for Kwanzaa, many of them for children to teach them the Seven Values
represented by the candles. Today,
however, we are sharing a song by soul
artist Teddy Prendergast.
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Teddy Pendergass's 1998 album This Christmas (I'd Rather Have Love) featured Happy Kwanzaa.
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Pendergrass was born in 1950 and
raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He rose to fame as the lead singer of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. After leaving the group in
1976, Pendergrass launched a successful solo
career releasing five consecutive platinum
albums, at the time a record for
a R&B artist. Pendergrass’s career was interrupted after a
March 1982 car crash that left him paralyzed from the chest down. He
eventually resumed his recording career until announcing his retirement in 2007 and died from respiratory failure in January 2010.
Happy Kwanzaa was included on Pendergrass’ 1998 album This Christmas (I'd Rather
Have Love).
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