Kwanzaa is a 7 day festival celebrating the African American people, their culture and their history. It is a time of celebration, community gathering, and reflection. A time of endings and beginnings. Kwanzaa begins on December 26th, the day after Christmas, and continues until New Years Day, January 1st.
Each evening a family member, usually the youngest child, lights candles in a special candleholder (kinara) and discusses one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa. On the sixth day, which falls on New Years Eve, family and friends get together to enjoy a large feast and to celebrate their history, culture, and the upcoming new year.
The holiday of Kwanzaa was created by Dr. Maulana Karenga in 1966, during the period of US history in which African Americans were involved in struggles for their civil rights. This was the period of Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights movement, and Black Power.
The seven days of Kwanzaa match the seven principles celebrated during the days. These are ideas that triumph the idea of community of individualism. Each day is dedicated to a specific idea
These principals are each given a day of observation, but all stress unity of the African American people, and the importance of community. Kwanzaa celebrations may have a specific “African” flair. The home may be decorated in colorful African cloth, and people may dress in tradition clothing. It may also be part of the celebration of Christmas and New Year's day.
In these cases, Christians who celebrate Kwanzaa may have the Christmas tree, and the kinara, the special menorah, which holds the seven candles representative of the Kwanzaa principles. On each night of Kwanzaa more candles are lit. On the seventh night all candles blaze forth to symbolize the whole of Kwanzaa.
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