Kwanzaa, an African-American holiday which celebrates family, community, and culture, is the fastest growing holiday in the U.S. An estimated 18 million Africans celebrate KWANZAA each year around the world, including celebrants in the U.S., Africa, the Caribbean, South America, especially Brazil, Canada, India, Britain and numerous European countries. Kwanzaa as an African-American holiday belongs to the most ancient tradition in the world, the African tradition. Drawing from and building on this rich and ancient tradition, Kwanzaa makes its own unique contribution to the enrichment and expansion of African tradition by reaffirming the importance of family, community, and culture. The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa. The central reason Kwanzaa is celebrated for seven days is to pay homage to The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa which in Swahili are: Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba, and Imani. The principles are also known as The Seven Principles of African American community development and serve as a fundamental value system.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
1 microfiche, Deep river, by M. M. Fisher.--The attitude of the free Negro toward African colonization, by L. Mehlinger.--Pan-Negro nationalism in the New World, before 1862, by H. R. Lynch.--The relations and duties of free colored men in America to Africa, by A. Crummell.--A project for an expedition of adventure to the eastern coast of Africa, by M. R. Delany.--The call of providence to the descendants of Africa in America, by E. W. Blyden.--Bishop Turner's African dream, by E. S. Redkey.--Alfred Charles Sam and an African return: a case study in Negro despair, by W. Bittle and G. Geis.--Booker T. Washington and the white man's burden, by L. Harlan.--DuBois and pan-Africa, by R. B. Moore.--Black Moses: Marcus Garvey and Garveyism, by E. D. Cronon.--Hide my face? The literary renaissance, by St. Clair Drake.--Notes on Negro American influences on the emergence of African nationalism, by G. Shepperson.--Something new out of Africa, by H. R. Isaacs.--Africa-conscious Harlem, by R. B. Moore.--Malcolm X: an international man, by R. M. and E. U. Essien-Udom.--Black power and colonialism, by J. Lester.
178 p., This dissertation is about the role that conservative religious notions of racial ideology played in the historical origins of black nationalism and pan-Africanism. Focuses on the writings of an African Caribbean, Edward Blyden, as the centerpiece of the study. Blyden, a native of Saint Thomas (Virgin Islands) and considered one of the "fathers" of both pan-Africanism and African nationalism, was a particularly complex diasporic intellectual. Traveling first to the United States in the pre-Civil War period, then to Africa and Britain at the height of the European imperial venture - and Christian missionary efforts - Blyden served as a conduit between the West (the United States and Britain) and both a traditional and a Muslim Africa. He saw his role as one of mediating (critiquing/translating) these divergent voices and ideologies with the object of constituting a "modern," pan-African subject.
For most Ghanaians, the tenets of Pan-Africanism are remote principles that bear little relevance in daily life, in which kinship, linguistic, ethnic, and national affiliations are primary markers of identity. This presents challenges for repatriated Rastafarians from the Caribbean, United States, and Europe, who attempt to establish a home and a place within Ghanaian society while retaining Rastafarian ways of living and spiritual philosophies drawn from a Pan-African ethos.
Kwanzaa, an African-American holiday which celebrates family, community, and culture, is the fastest growing holiday in the U.S. An estimated 18 million Africans celebrate KWANZAA each year around the world, including celebrants in the U.S., Africa, the Caribbean, South America, especially Brazil, Canada, India, Britain and numerous European countries. Kwanzaa as an African-American holiday belongs to the most ancient tradition in the world, the African tradition. Drawing from and building on this rich and ancient tradition, Kwanzaa makes its own unique contribution to the enrichment and expansion of African tradition by reaffirming the importance of family, community, and culture. The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa. The central reason Kwanzaa is celebrated for seven days is to pay homage to The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa which in Swahili are: Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba, and Imani. The principles are also known as The Seven Principles of African American community development and serve as a fundamental value system.
"It must be relevant because most of the Jamaican population is of African stock, and we have never been able to forge that link between the motherland and the Caribbean," he told IPS. "It's very important to decide on our next step (to develop) a South-South relationship because we've always been looking to the North." Pan-Africanism is in one sense a united movement of countries on the African continent, but in the wider sense, encompasses a collective consciousness of all peoples of African descent. "[Marcus Garvey], as the father of Pan-Africanism, always tried to forge that link - that's why he started the (shipping line) Black Star liner," said Mutabaruka. "Politicians, people don't see the necessity to deal with Africa because they say Africa is not a place of development." "There wasn't a single nation or country with people of African descent and Africans which did not celebrate Nelson Mandela becoming president (in South Africa), because there was such a strong sense of identification with that," [Zweledinga Pallo Jordan] notes. "(But) it wasn't just identification, it was based on the fact that everyone in the entire African community across the Atlantic had participated in one way or another, some in big ways, some in small ways, but everyone had made a contribution, that's why people felt it was their victory."
