Kwanzaa is a bonus winter holiday which provides yet another meaningful opportunity to learn about and celebrate culture with my global kids.
This week, my boys learned that Kwanzaa is an American-born celebration of African-American culture, heritage and community, and is observed mainly in the U.S, but throughout the world, for the week between 26th December and 1st January each year.Established in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga, a professor of Africana Studies at California State University, this celebration represents many universal principles that renew, unite and strengthen the human spirit within all of us.
These global lessons of Kwanzaa, which truly transcend cultures throughout the world, are described here in the words of Kwanzaa creator, Dr. Karenga. Kwanzaa is a celebration of family, community and culture with each providing a context and commitment of common ground, cooperative practice and shared good.
Kwanzaa is a celebration of the family which first forms us, names, nurtures and sustains us, and teaches us upright and uplifting ways to understand and assert our- selves in the world. Kwanzaa is a celebration of the community which calls us into being as a people, serves as the source and center of our strivings and struggles together to live good and meaningful lives, create, advance and sustain culture, and play the rightful role that our history, shared hope and dedication to the good demand of us.
And Kwanzaa is a celebration of the culture that brought humanity and human civilization into being, formed the first disciplines of human knowledge, gave deep spiritual and ethical insight and grounding to our ancestors and the world, and offers us valuable and timeless insights to engage the critical issues of our time.
