Taking stock of Kwanzaa

New Crisis, The, Nov/Dec 2001 by Stovall, TaRessa

After 35 years, commercialization threatens to dilute the Afrocentric, communal spirit upon which the holiday was founded.

Kwanzaa, the holiday created in 1966 to celebrate the communal values of traditional African culture by Professor Maulana Karenga, has taken firm root in the American mainstream and achieved worldwide prominence.

Named after and paying homage to the harvest celebrations in ancient Africa, the seven-day celebration is observed from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1. The seven days - expressed in Swahili are, respectively: Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (Self-Determination), Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility), Ujanaa (Cooperative Economics), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity) and Imani (Faith).

According to New York Times' estimates, about 18 million people in the United States celebrate Kwanzaa now routinely mentioned along with Christmas and Hanukkah. Hallmark includes Kwanzaa cards in its African American-oriented Mahogany line; supermarket chains offer Kwanzaa displays, posters and advertisements; and most major newspapers run prominent annual feature stories explaining the holiday to their readers. Growing numbers of churches and schools incorporate Kwanzaa and its principles into the holiday season. And in 1997, Kwanzaa's prominence was honored with a U.S. postage stamp.

"As we celebrate Kwanzaa this 35th year of its founding, it is now celebrated by more than 28 million African people on every continent in the world," says Karenga, who has received "letters of thanks and inquiry from Africans around the world - Kenya, Cameroon, Turkey, India, Panama, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Canada, England, Germany, France who celebrate Kwanzaa and see it as a valuable tradition and heritage."

Karenga, chair of the Department of Black Studies at California State University at Long Beach, attributes Kwanzaa's growing popularity to our need for cultural vision and values that celebrate and reinforce family, community and culture and to the holiday's reaffirmation of ancient African tradition. He also credits Kwanzaa's power as a unifying force that brings us together "from all countries, all religious traditions, all classes, all ages and generations, and all political persuasions on the common ground of our Africanness."

William H. Jordan, co-founder of the MelaNet Web site, says that with today's Black communities flung far and wide, Kwanzaa helps provide a sense of connection for many. When MelaNet.com launched the MelaNet Kwanzaa Information Center in 1994, there weren't many others. For five years, traffic to the site grew about 300 percent each year; since 1999 its annual growth has slowed to about 100 percent. The decrease, Jordan says, is not because fewer people are interested in Kwanzaa, but because more Kwanzaa-- related sites exist online.

As Kwanzaa's reach expands, some individuals are celebrating in smaller, more personal ways. Ayo Handy Kendi, founder and executive director of the African American Holiday Association in Washington, D.C., has conducted Kwanzaa workshops and events along the East coast for about 28 years.

"What we saw in the earlier years is that there were larger candle-lighting services where many, many people would come - from independent Black schools in particular - but in the last three or four years, I've been asked to come and conduct a number of in-home [family] candle-lighting services."

Some people complain that Kwanzaa's growth puts it in danger of losing its meaning. Conrad W. Worrill, national chairman of the National Black United Front based outside Chicago, has written: "It should be made clear that Kwanzaa is not the kind of African American celebration that should be sold to corporate America. The economic aspect of Kwanzaa urges people of African ancestry to do business with each other through the practice of Ujamaa [cooperative economics]. ... Kwanzaa is a celebration that belongs to us. Let's not destroy it by exploiting its true meaning."

Karenga, however, puts his faith in the people: "Only we could distort it or let it happen by collaborating in a process that the established order designs for this distortion." Still, he makes a distinction between "the cooperative economic practices of African American artists, producers and vendors to provide Kwanzaa materials and the corporate world's move to penetrate and dominate the community Kwanzaa markets. The first is appropriate; the latter is exploitative and oppressive and should be resisted."

Some African American artisans and vendors feel the pinch of corporate competition. "The statistics say that the number of people celebrating Kwanzaa has increased," says Sala Damali, partner in Kuumba Kollectibles and the International Black Buyers and Manufacturers Expo and Conference in Washington, D.C. "Our sales took a downturn when mainstream companies thought Kwanzaa would be profitable. We became aware of them examining the Afrocentric market around 1990. They looked at the independent Black card companies and Mahogany was born. Now, the general trade magazines talk about how to market Kwanzaa."