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Kwanzaa

Note: We had technical difficulty recording the video of the 2020 Kwanzaa program. Instead please enjoy:

Observing Kwanzaa and celebrating our history, our families, our communities, our culture, our origins, and our faith are longstanding traditions of St James’ Episcopal Church and the Union of Black Episcopalians – Myra McDaniel Chapter.

Each year we gather together to reflect upon the principles of Kwanzaa. This is the time for recollection, remembering, reflection, reaffirmations, and togetherness of family, culture, and friends. St. James’ welcomes and gives thanks for life blessings, unity of the family, our origins, culture, and the reverence of our ancestors. We share awareness and appreciation of African heritage here and everywhere by reflecting upon cultural connections to our common cradle of civilization, unifying and strengthening our faith in purposeful living, demonstrating that we are created from uniquely determined people.

Recommended Resources

About Kwanzaa

Habari Gani? What’s the news?

The news we are celebrating is 54 years of the Nguzo Saba, seven principles that represent a guide for daily living studied during Kwanzaa to be practiced throughout the year.

Kwanza is an African American and pan-African holiday which celebrates family, community, and culture. During the holiday, families and communities organize activities around the Nguzo Saba (The Seven Principles). Participants light candles each day of the holiday, and celebrate with feasts (karamu), music, dance, poetry, narratives, and storytelling, throughout the week, ending with reflection and recommitment to uplifting the principles year-round.

Kwanzaa was created in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga, to reaffirm the responsibility we all have for our families, and to renew the deeply held beliefs and values of traditional African customs and culture. It is a way of life, not just a 7-day celebration.

The colors of the bendera (the flag) are black for the people, red for their struggle, and green for the future and hope that comes from their struggle. It is based on the colors given by the Honorable Marcus Garvey as national colors for African people throughout the world.

Each day of Kwanzaa we light the candle that corresponds to the principal of the day, adding one additional candle every day through January 1st, the final day of Kwanzaa: Imani (faith) when we light all seven candles in celebration.

Nguzo Saba (The 7  Principles):
  • December 26: UMOJA (oo-moe-jah) ~ Unity – black candle
  • December 27: KUJICHAGULIA (koo-gee-cha-goo-lee-ah) ~ Self-Determination – red candle
  • December 28: UJIMA (oo-gee-mah) ~ Collective Work & Responsibility – green  candle
  • December 29: UJAMAA (oo-ja-mah) ~ Cooperative Economics – red candle
  • December 30: NIA (nee-ah) ~ Purpose – green candle
  • December 31: KUUMBA (koo-oom-bah) ~ Creativity – red candle
  • January 1: IMANI (ee-mah-nee) ~ Faith – green candle
The Symbols:
  • Mazao (The Crops): These are symbolic of African harvest celebrations and of the rewards of productive and collective labor.
  • Mkeka (The Mat): This is symbolic of our tradition and history and therefore, the foundation on which we build.
  • Kinara (The Candle Holder): This is symbolic of our roots, our parent people — continental Africans.
  • Muhindi (The Corn): This is symbolic of our children and our future which they embody.
  • Mishumaa Saba (The Seven Candles): These are symbolic of the Nguzo Saba, the Seven Principles, the matrix and minimum set of values which African people are urged to live by in order to rescue and reconstruct their lives in their own image and according to their own needs.
  • Kikombe cha Umoja (The Unity Cup): This is symbolic of the foundational principle and practice of unity which makes all else possible.
  • Zawadi (The Gifts): These are symbolic of the labor and love of parents and the commitments made and kept by the children.
  • Bendera (The Flag): The colors of the flag are black for the people, red for their struggle, and green for the future and hope that comes from their struggle. It is based on the colors given by the Hon. Marcus Garvey as national colors for African people throughout the world.

About “Lift Every Voice and Sing”

Lift Every Voice and Sing – often called “The Black National Anthem” – was written as a poem by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) and then set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954) in 1899. It was first performed in public in the Johnsons’ hometown of Jacksonville, Florida as part of a celebration of Lincoln’s Birthday on February 12, 1900 by a choir of 500 schoolchildren at the segregated Stanton School, where James Weldon Johnson was principal.

Lyrics to Lift Every Voice and Sing (#1 in the LEVAS Hymnal)

Lift ev’ry voice and sing,
‘Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list’ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on ’til victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
‘Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.