TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/122391/1223140.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.1 KB | 114 lines

                                                                                LIVING, Page 81

Tidings of Black Pride and Joy


Kwanzaa, the African-American Yule-time celebration, is becoming
more popular -- and more commercial

By JANICE C. SIMPSON


    Add a new seasonal greeting to your list: Habari gani. It
is Swahili for "What's new?" and the salutation for millions of
African Americans who celebrate Kwanzaa, a seven-day holiday
that begins on Dec. 26. Inaugurated 25 years ago as a
black-nationalist celebration of familial and social values, the
festivities are now being embraced by the black mainstream.

    Kwanzaa is patterned after various African agricultural
festivals, and the name derives from the Swahili word for first
fruit of the harvest. It was created by Maulana Karenga, a
black-studies professor at California State University, Long
Beach. The purpose of the holiday, he says, is to help black
people "rescue and reconstruct our history and culture and shape
them in our own image."

    Unlike Christmas or Hanukkah, Kwanzaa is not a religious
holiday; the festival celebrates seven principles -- unity,
self-determination, collective work and responsibility,
cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith -- assigned
to each of the days. Observers gather each evening to light one
of the candles in the kinara, a seven-cup candelabrum, and
discuss how the principle of the day affects their life. Small
gifts are often exchanged.

    In the late 1960s, Kwanzaa was celebrated mainly by the
more radical members of the black-nationalist community. But
now, says the Rev. Willie Wilson, pastor at Union Temple
Baptist Church in Washington, "you find a lot of people trying
to return to their roots and cultural values." Each year
Wilson's church holds nightly Kwanzaa observances that culminate
in a ball, which now draws about 1,000 participants. No one
knows precisely how many people observe Kwanzaa, but its biggest
boosters are middle-class professionals seeking to give their
children a sense of black pride. "My children grew up in a
fairly white community, and that motivated me to teach them the
value of the African-American heritage," says Vickie Butcher,
50, a lawyer in El Cajon, Calif., who celebrates with her
physician husband and their five children. "We sit in a circle,
and every person talks about that day's principle," she says.
"The creating and sharing is real quality time."

    On the final night of the holiday, friends and relatives
join the family for a feast known as the Karamu. This year a
compendium of celebratory recipes has been published in Eric
Copage's Kwanzaa: An African-American Celebration of Culture and
Cooking (Morrow; $25). The book also contains stories about
black history and culture, along with suggestions on how to use
them to illustrate the seven principles.

    Museums and other institutions have begun to adopt the
celebrations. Last year more than 8,500 people attended poetry
readings, music performances and puppet shows during the sixth
annual observance at Manhattan's American Museum of Natural
History. The Smithsonian added a program of Kwanzaa activities
to its Christmas and Hanukkah celebrations in 1988.

    The proximity to Christmas and the fact that gifts are
bestowed have led some people to think of Kwanzaa as a Yule
alternative, but increasingly, black families observe both. As
the black holiday spirit spreads, however, so do problems of
creeping commercialism. One black-owned publishing company
already markets 21 styles of Kwanzaa cards and a 32-page
activity book for children. Future products include a Kwanzaa
kit, complete with a kinara and instructions for novice
celebrators.

    Some parents even purchase bicycles and Nintendo sets for
Kwanzaa gifts; they rationalize the excess by buying from
black-owned businesses. That, they say, is in the spirit of
ujamaa, or cooperative economics. "This is the U.S., and if
anything becomes successful, it almost automatically becomes
commercial," says Copage. "Doing otherwise is like trying to
surf without getting wet."

    What next? Cedric McClester, author of Kwanzaa: Everything
You Always Wanted to Know but Didn't Know Where to Ask, has
created Nia Umoja, "an African answer to Santa Claus." The
character, who is supposed to represent an African griot, or
wise man, wears a Nehru-style suit and joins hands with
youngsters to ask what they have learned about Kwanzaa. Says
McClester: "Kwanzaa needed a character because we need to
attract younger people and their parents."

    Traditionalists disapprove of these developments but say
they are a natural part of the evolution of holiday
celebrations. "These things are going to happen, just as they
have with Christmas, Chinese New Year and Hanukkah," says Tulivu
Jadi, an official at the African American Cultural Center in Los
Angeles. "But there is still a community -- and not a small one
-- that observes the serious intent of the holiday." This year
the center is collecting food and clothing for the homeless,
another way to spread the true joys of Kwanzaa.