Columbia celebrates Kwanzaa season, community

The event was held to unify communities and rediscover ancestry.

By Krystin Arneson

Published Dec. 8, 2009

The Fun City Youth Academy children's choir sang in a jazzy lilt, swaying and clapping.

"I wanna feel cheery, I wanna feel snappy, I wanna feel good, good, good," the choir sang.

Unaccompanied but for calls from the audience of "sing it, babies," the group filled the small blue and white gym of Frederick Douglass High School as parents and members of the community came out to celebrate Kwanzaa.

The seven-day holiday was established in 1966 to remember and celebrate the African-American experience, unify communities and families and rediscover one's ancestry and heritage. Although Kwanzaa begins Dec. 26, the Dec. 5 celebration at Douglass was a chance for the community to come together, socialize and share a sense of unity.

"It's an opportunity to come and see neighbors," said Verna Harris-Laboy, an attendee who has participated in the celebration for years now and knows not only the adults, but also the children of their children.

She briefly turned away to greet a young man, now a father, who still called her "Miss Verna."

"I'm proud of you," she said to him as she saw his daughter.

After he left, Harris-Laboy said. "It's a good way to reconnect with neighbors. This is a community celebration."

Harris-Laboy attended the event to see neighbors and to promote Ardyss, a nutrition-supplement and reshaping-garment company for which she sells products. Her entrepreneurial table was one of several that lined the walls of the gym, which was appropriate, given one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa is "ujamaa," a Swahili word meaning "cooperative economics," or the concept that African Americans should further build their community through entrepreneurial establishments whose profits could help to benefit all.

After the last notes reverberated off the cinderblock walls, the choir, with brightly patterned scarves struggling to stay on their shoulders, performed a vigorous stomp routine that reflected the next generation of African-American heritage. Between the teachers running through the ranks of singing children and the choir's occasionally imperfect (but still endearing) recitations of summarized African-American biographies, the children on stage seemed to be woven into the bustle of celebration, instead of elevated away from it.

West Boulevard Elementary second-grader Ahnyia Nelson, who celebrates Kwanzaa at home, was one of the many children watching the ceremony. For her too, the celebration wasn't just about the candles or the performers, it was about seeing her friends.

"This is my first time ever coming here," she said. "I wanted to come here and watch people and eat and stuff, but I really came to play with my friends 'cause I know a lot of them."

Throughout the event, the focus of the celebration remained on the community and Kwanzaa. Toward the end of the afternoon, a woman who had renamed herself "Nia Imani," after the Kwanzaa principles of "nia," meaning "purpose," and "imani," meaning "faith," called people over to gather near the stage, where a table was set up.

"All praises due to the ancestors," said Imani, praying at the start of the formal lighting of the Kwanzaa candles.

Each one of the candles represented a different principle of Kwanzaa, and like Hanukkah, one is lit each day of the celebration. All seven were lit this afternoon as she explained to the children the story behind Kwanzaa and the significance of each principle.

"I hope it makes a difference to somebody," she said. "I know it won't make a difference to everybody, but I hope it makes a difference to somebody."

She explained Kwanzaa was not only about family and community, but also finding out about "who you are, about who your great grandma was."

"Learn about who you are, and don't let anybody tell you any different," she said.