Leid Stories—What’s Kwanzaa?: Dr. Maulana Karenga, the Originator of Kwanzaa, Explains the Meaning, Purpose, Principles and Practices of the Now-Global Celebration—12.26.17

It’s the first day of Kwanzaa, a weeklong period (Dec. 26-Jan.1) of education, reflection and celebration of African-derived core principles the pan-African world is encouraged to observe in the spirit of collective struggle and progress.

Forged in the crucible of mass social, political, economic, and even moral oppression in the United States in the 1960s, Kwanzaa was designed as a comprehensive system of correctives. But many Americans do not know what the Kwanzaa is all about.

Dr. Maulana Karenga, a major figure in the U.S. black-nationalist movement in the ’60s and ’70s and now author, scholar and chair of the Africana Studies Department at California State University, Long Beach, created Kwanzaa. In this panoramic address (2008) to the Philadelphia chapter of the National Association of Kawaida Organizations Karenga explains the meaning, purpose, principles and practices of the now-global celebration of Kwanzaa.