For Dr. Jessica B. Harris, Kwanzaa Is a Holiday of Improvisation, Family, and Ritual

Those who think that holidays are days steeped in centuries-old tradition are always surprised to hear that the Black American feast of Kwanzaa was established in 1966. That was the year Maulana Karenga decided that Black Americans needed a time of cultural reaffirmation. He looked east to Africa, East Africa, and came up with a celebration that is a compilation of several harvest festivals and celebrations that are held throughout the continent.

The name Kwanzaa comes from the Swahili word kwanza, meaning “first,” as in the phrase matunda ya kwanza (“first fruits”). The second “a” distinguishes the Black American kwanzaa from the African kwanza. A most likely apocryphal tale is told that during one of the early Kwanzaa celebrations, a children’s pageant was held, with each child holding up a card with the letters of the word kwanza, which at that time was spelled with one “a.” One child was left letterless and weeping at the end of the row. A second “a” was quickly produced, the day was saved, and the holiday was forever after known as Kwanzaa.

Occurring annually from December 26 to January 1, Kwanzaa is a time of feasting, and of self-examination. It was at first celebrated mainly by cultural nationalists who wished to express their Pan-African solidarity. Yet, as word of the new holiday and its family-strengthening virtues spread, Black Americans from all walks of life began to celebrate the seven nights of reflection.

The celebration of Kwanzaa is guided by the Nguzo Saba or Seven Principles. Each day of the weeklong festival is devoted to the celebration of one of these building blocks of self-awareness.

The mystical number seven is at the core of the celebration: There are seven days, seven principles, and even seven symbols of the festival. The symbols are the mazao, the fruits and vegetables of the harvest that are a part of the celebration table; the mkeka, the placement on which they are arranged, and the kinara, the seven-branched candlestick that holds the red, black, and green candles, the mishumaa saba, that are lighted each evening. There are also the muhindi, the ears of corn that represent each child still remaining at home; the kikombe cha umoja, the communal chalice from which the ceremonial libation is poured (post Covid, the days of sipping from a communal chalice are for the most part over), and the zawadi, the gifts.

Kwanzaa is essentially a family holiday, whether it be nuclear family, extended family, or communal family. Each evening of the holiday, family members gather around the celebration table to read the Seven Principles and meditate on the principle of the day while the youngest child lights one of the candles. Visitors are asked to participate as the nightly ceremony is held, the candles lighted, and the libation poured from the communal cup.

There are as many different types of Kwanzaa as there are types of families in the Black American community. Black Americans are known for improvisation; our virtuoso turns have created musical forms that have made the entire world sing and dance. Our artistic endeavors have redefined Western art forms. Wherever we have stepped and stopped, our transformational and improvisational skills have changed the country and the hemisphere. Our expressions are found in domains as wide-ranging as retail sales and cooking, music, and language to mention but a few. In our world, there’s always room for improvisation; it would be impossible for us not to improvise on the themes of Kwanzaa.

So, we ring in changes and create new riffs on our own holiday. There are single Kwanzaas, celebrated by individuals with friends and neighbors; nuclear family Kwanzaas with mommy, daddy, and the kids gathering each evening to light the candles. There are single-parent Kwanzaas, extended-family Kwanzaas, neighborhood Kwanzaas, community Kwanzaas, and even workplace Kwanzaas. For more than a decade I was the mistress of ceremonies at a Kwanzaa celebration hosted by the Africana Studies department at Queens College/CUNY in New York City, where I taught. Each year the celebration grew and offered the Black faculty and staff a chance to get together and remind the institution and themselves of their presence and importance at the institution. Each Kwanzaa celebration brings something else to the kaleidoscope of possibilities that is the holiday.

My aunt Clara always used to say, “You don’t have a holiday, you have to make a holiday.” In this she spoke the truth. The personal meaning of each and every holiday comes from the manner and commitment with which the celebrants choose to participate in it.

My Kwanzaa is informed by two main factors in my life: family and ritual. My family has always been the nucleus of my being. Pride in my parents, their accomplishments, their perseverance, their ability to survive in a world that was not always kind, and my desire to live up to their standards have been strong motivating factors.

I am also an individual steeped in a love of history and tradition. As a retired teacher and culinary historian, I believe it is important that we know about our past. As an internationalist, I believe it is important that we know about the cultures of peoples of African descent around the globe. As a spiritual being, I believe it is important that we honor those who went before so that we build on their deeds in creating our own future.

In 1995, I was a relative newcomer to the holiday of Kwanzaa, but when I looked at the holiday, I realized that I’d been celebrating it all of my adult life in my own personal way. I may have been out of sync, but I was always in the spirit. My personal celebration has usually taken place on only one of the days of the holiday: January 1. On that day for more than twenty years, I opened my home to friends old and new, to relatives, and to new acquaintances whose spirits spoke to me. Over the years that it was held, the gathering grew from a few friends who were invited over to meet my parents to a gathering of fifty or more individuals from around the world.

At one celebration, Haitians, Brazilians, Senegalese, Guyanese, Ethiopians, and Americans of all hues gathered to start the year. A Muslim religious leader shared conversation with a Yoruba priestess, while a precocious eleven-year-old offered his views on polygamy to an astonished group of single over-forty women. My eighty-one-year-old mother danced a few vigorous steps to some Zairian soukouss music, while my Uncle Herbie, who’s really not my uncle but has known me all of my life, guarded the door. There was a heaping plate of food on the floor in the kitchen for my ancestors, who were called by name in a small New World Yoruba ceremony just prior to the serving of the food. There was music, food, drink, good times, reminiscence, reflection, and communion. In short, there was Kwanzaa.

The menu was selected to salute my Black American ancestry and my international life. Each year there’s Hoppin’ John for luck and collard greens for folding money. There’s also roast pork for sheer colored cussedness, survival, and a universal desire to live high on the hog. A mixture of okra, corn, and tomatoes is served with hot chile to fire us up for the oncoming year and to remind us of our origins. For internationality, there’s always a diaspora dish from Brazil, the Caribbean, or the Motherland, that changes annually.

The gathering has become so much a part of my celebration of the first of the year that for many decades my budget and my life were planned around it. My Kwanzaa continued until 2000, which was the year that my mother died. Following her death, I became a holiday orphan and often spent Christmases in New Orleans celebrating with friends there. I became a part of their community and left my New York Kwanzaa behind. Now, with young friends having children and with the world roiling in turmoil that calls for Black Americans to come together as a people to seriously think of new ways and real solutions to twenty-first–century issues, I feel that a return to Kwanzaa is again essential.

As I look around at the Black American community, I find that I have unwittingly allowed myself some leeway because I do not have children. However, the responsibilities of Kwanzaa go beyond the family to extended family and to the community, and there, we all have children. Our children need the sense of specialness that comes from participating in a known and loved ritual. They need the mastery of self-discipline that comes from order. They need the pride and self-awareness that comes from a knowledge of their past as well as the stability that comes from a holiday that offers continuity and hope. In brief, they need Kwanzaa as a tool for building their future and our own.

Excerpted from A Kwanzaa Keepsake and Cookbook by Jessica B. Harris. Copyright © 1995, 2024 by Jessica B. Harris. Reprinted by permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.