Parks and Recreation Department hosts Kwanzaa celebration

The holiday serves to recognize African American people and their past.

By Gretchen Mahan

Published Dec. 9, 2008

The Columbia Parks and Recreation Department hosted a Kwanzaa celebration on Dec. 6 at Douglass High School as an effort to educate students and the community about African American culture.

Kwanzaa is not a religious holiday, but a holiday to celebrate the African-American people and their past.

Shirlene McClain, a Parks and Recreation employee who serves as activity director for the celebration, said the holiday was an opportunity to bring the community of Columbia together.

"We have to work together and do things to encourage one another," she said. "We are a village."

The event began with a performance of gospel music by One Accord, a six-member local band. Even though Kwanzaa is not a religious holiday, One Accord performed songs such as the band's version of "This Little Light of Mine" and "Amazing Grace." While the band performed, children gathered at a craft table to color pictures that included the Kwanzaa unity cup and African tribal masks.

Nia Imani, the president of the board of Fun City, explained to the audience the traditions of Kwanzaa as she lit seven candles on the Kinara.

Imani, whose first and last names happen to be two of the seven Swahili words for the principles, related the principle of cooperative economics to the economic crisis.

"You know we're kind of broke right now," she said to the children in the audience, and told them not too ask for very expensive gifts for Christmas this year.

When Imani asked the audience how many of them were planning on celebrating Kwanzaa, not one person raised their hand.

Barbara Walker, executive director of Fun City, which co-sponsored the event, said this could be for various reasons. One reason, she said, could be because of the holiday's proximity to Christmas.

"By the time Kwanzaa starts the day after Christmas people are broke," she said. "They are worn out from Christmas."

During Kwanzaa, children are encouraged to make gifts rather than buy them, but Walker said children are becoming materialistic.

"Kids don't want to make a gift when they can get an iPod or an iPhone," she said.

Maulana Karenga, a professor of Africana Studies at California State University-Long Beach, began the holiday in 1966. Kwanzaa begins on Dec. 26 and lasts seven days, one for each of the Nguzo Saba, or "seven principles." The principles include the Swahili words for unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. Each day, those who celebrate Kwanzaa light one candle on the seven-candled Kinara.

The committee for the event chose seven members of the community who they thought displayed one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa and presented them with plaques.

Two of those seven included Elisabeth Welpman, a paraprofessional at Ulysses S. Grant Elementary School in Columbia, who started The Blaze, a Christian hip-hop group for youth, and Almeta Crayton, the former First Ward councilwoman of the Columbia City Council.

Welpman was recognized for "kuumba," the principle of creativity, and Crayton was awarded for "umoja," or unity.

The event closed with a feast.

Wynna Faye Elbert, vice president of P.R.I.D.E. and the activity director prior to McClain, said it is important for people to learn about their history through Kwanzaa.

"If you don't know where you come from, you're definitely not going to know where you're going," she said.