50th Anniversary Of Kwanzaa Begins
by Steve Tawa
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The African-American community in Philadelphia is observing Kwanzaa, which is now celebrating its 50th anniversary.
It's a celebration of community, family, and culture, as a means to help African-Americans reconnect with their roots.
Like Christmas and Hanukkah, the other major holidays with which it overlaps, Kwanzaa has its symbols. On each of seven nights, observants light a candle, recognizing seven core principles.
We visited the Nzinga Shields home in the Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia, where they placed a candle-holder, called a Kinara, holding seven candles on the Kwanzaa table.
"The Kinara represents our foreparents, our forefathers. If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't be here," said Maisha Sullivan of the Kwanzaa Cooperative.
When lighting the first one, a black candle, placed right in the middle of red and green candles, Sullivan tells us about the first principle, Umoja, or unity.
"We want to discuss what unity means during Kwanzaa. Every day that you're lighting, you have a discussion about that principle and how you practice it, or how you need to practice it more," Sullivan explained.
The colors associated with Kwanzaa are red, black, and green.
"Black represents black people. Red represents the struggle in life. Green represents the future," said Sullivan.
Milele Sullivan-Gaillard says Kwanzaa reinforces ideas about how to embody those principles year round.
"Get yourself back on track, and remember that I practiced self-determination that day," she said.
She goes to schools, churches and community centers to spread the word about Kwanzaa.
"I love how people gather to connect and do good things. It's not a gathering because of a crisis or because something went wrong. It's still a fairly young holiday. The only one we celebrate in the U.S. that is younger is Martin Luther King's birthday," said Sullivan-Gaillard.
Rather than a religious holiday, Kwanzaa is secular, encouraging people to research their history, and to find their own sense of pride and unity.
It's more of a cultural holiday.
Kwanzaa was conceived in the mid 1960's after the 1965 Watts riots by professor, activist, and author Maulana Karenga, when he was a doctoral student at UCLA in Los Angeles.
He'll be at West Philadelphia High School Thursday evening for a 50th annual Kwanzaa celebration.
