| ANNUAL FOUNDER’S KWANZAA MESSAGE |
“KWANZAA, FREEDOM, JUSTICE AND PEACE:
PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES FOR A NEW WORLD”
Los Angeles Sentinel, 12-21-23, p. C-1
DR. MAULANA KARENGA
|A GAIN, THIS YEAR WE WISH FOR Africans
everywhere throughout the world
African community “Heri za Kwanzaa.
good is the presence of peace. And there is no
blame in peace for those who practice it”.
But always they and history teach us it
Happy Kwanzaa”. And we bring and send must be a peace in freedom and with justice
greetings of celebration, solidarity and con- to be a good and rightful peace. Thus, we are
tinued struggle for an inclusive and shared morally called, commanded and compelled to
good in the world. Also, in the still-held-high bear witness to truth and set the scales of jus-
tradition of our ancestors, we wish for tice in their proper place, especially among
African peoples and all the peoples of the the voiceless and devalued, the downtrodden
world all the good that heaven grants, the and defenseless, the oppressed, and the dif-
earth produces and the waters bring forth ferent and vulnerable. And we must do this
from their depths. Hotep. Ase. Heri. More- not only through speech, but also in the way
over, among all the goods that are granted, we live our lives, do our work and wage our
given and gained through ceaseless striving struggles for shared good in the world.
and righteous and relentless struggle, we Kwanzaa was conceived and born in the
wish, especially for our people and all other womb, work and transformative struggles of
oppressed and struggling peoples of the the Black Freedom Movement. And thus, its
world, the shared and indivisible goods of essential message and meaning was shaped
freedom, justice and peace, deservedly and shared not only in sankofa initiatives of
achieved and enjoyed and passed on to future cultural retrieval, of the best of our views,
generations. Indeed, we live in turbulent values and practices as African peoples. It
times of continuing unfreedom and oppres- was also shaped by that defining decade of
sion, the enduring evil of injustice and fierce strivings and struggles for freedom,
destructive conflicts, and unjust and geno- justice and associated goods waged by
cidal war. And freedom, justice and peace in Africans and other peoples of color all over
the world and for the good of the world and the world in the 1960s. Kwanzaa thus came
all in it are urgent, essential and indispensa- into being, grounded itself and grew as an act
ble. of freedom, an instrument of freedom, a cele-
Nana Haji Malcolm rightly and repeat- bration of freedom and a practice of freedom.
edly taught that freedom is a natural and nec- It was an act of self-determination and self-
essary right in the pursuit and practice of jus- authorization; a means of cultivating and
tice and equality, the rightful realization of expanding consciousness and commitment; a
our full humanity, and the living of a good, righteous reveling in our recaptured sense of
meaningful and ever-promising life. Our hon- the sacredness, soulfulness and beauty of our
ored ancestors also taught us the life-giving, Black selves; and the practice of principles
life-preserving essentiality of justice, saying that engenders and sustains liberated and
in the Husia, “Doing justice is breath to the liberating ways to understand and assert
nose”. Indeed, they taught “the true balancing ourselves in the world.
of the world lies in doing justice”. And they And at the heart of this liberated and
said of peace and its importance to the life liberating practice are the Nguzo Saba, the
and community of humankind “Exceedingly Seven Principles of Kwanzaa and of
| ANNUAL FOUNDER’S KWANZAA MESSAGE |
“KWANZAA, FREEDOM, JUSTICE AND PEACE: PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES FOR A NEW WORLD”
Los Angeles Sentinel, 12-21-23, p. C-1
DR. MAULANA KARENGA
Kawaida philosophy out of which I created Ujima (Collective Work and Respon-
both Kwanzaa and the Nguzo Saba. Kawaida sibility) reminds us and reaffirms the en-
defines itself as and strives mightily to bring during and essential truth that we must build
forth the “the best of African sensibilities, the good world we all want and deserve. It
thought and practice in constant exchange teaches the centrality of togetherness in our
with the world” and thus is developed and constant quest for an inclusive freedom, jus-
directed in the interest of African and human tice and peace. And it reaffirms the reality
good and the well-being of the world. that only in collective work and responsibil-
If we are to achieve these vital goods ity can we achieve freedom, ensure justice
and the new world that their securing will and build the peace and security of persons
require and reflect, then, we must have prin- and peoples we all long and struggle for all
ciples and practices that ground and direct us over the world. And as Nana Dr. Mary
toward this noble and needed goal. And the McLeod Bethune taught us, “Our task is to
Nguzo Saba, the Seven Principles, offer us remake the world. It is nothing less than this”.
these principles and practices. Umoja And we must do this together, for freedom,
(Unity) calls on us to work and struggle for justice, peace and other goods are indivisible
principled, purposeful and practiced togeth- and they are vulnerable and unattainable in
erness in freedom, justice and peace in our isolation. And we know from the hard lessons
families, communities and the world. It of history and the irreducible requirements of
stresses the ties that link us and cultivate in our humanity that there can be no peace
us sensitivity to each other, other humans and without justice, no justice without freedom
the world and all in it. Indeed, it is expressed and no freedom without the power, will and
in the teaching of Nana Dr. Anna Julia struggle of the peoples of the world to
Cooper who affirmed this ancient and achieve and sustain these shared and vital
African value. She says, “we take our stand goods.
on the solidarity of humanity, the oneness of Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics)
life and the unnaturalness and injustice of all teaches us the principle and practice of shared
favoritism whether of sex, race, condition or work and shared wealth. Modeled on the
country”. shared harvest, it calls for cooperative work,
Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) re- respect of the rights of the workers and the
affirms the fundamental principle and needs of everyone for a life of dignity and
practice of the right of every people to economic security and the conditions and
determine their own destiny and daily lives, capacities to live a free, good and meaningful
to live free in their own place, space and time. life. It is rooted in the concept of kinship with
And it reaffirms the right to resist all forms of and caring kindness toward others and the
unfreedom, injustice and oppression. It earth and cultivates a sensitivity for avoiding
reaffirms Nana Haji Malcolm X’s teaching and resisting injuries to fellow humans and
that “Freedom is essential to life itself. the natural world.
Freedom is essential to the development of The principle and practice of Nia
the human being. (And) If we don’t have (Purpose) calls us to do good in and for the
freedom, we can never expect justice and world, to pursue and practice freedom, jus-
equality”. Indeed, “only after freedom do tice, peace, caring, sharing and all that
justice and equality become a reality” in the contributes to African and human good and
fullest sense of the principle and practice. the well-being of the world and all in it.
| ANNUAL FOUNDER’S KWANZAA MESSAGE |
“KWANZAA, FREEDOM, JUSTICE AND PEACE: PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES FOR A NEW WORLD”
Los Angeles Sentinel, 12-21-23, p. C-1
DR. MAULANA KARENGA
Indeed, the ancestors teach us in the Odu Ifa depleted, to set right what is wrong, to
that we should do things with joy for humans strengthen what is weakened, and to make
are divinely chosen and righteously chal- flourish that which is fragile, insecure and
lenged to do good in the world. And they re- undeveloped.
mind us in the Husia that the good we do for
others we are also doing for ourselves, for we
are building the good and promising world |A nd the principle and practice of Imani
(Faith) teaches us to believe in the
we all want and deserve to live in and to leave good and strive constantly to achieve it
as a storehouse of good for those who come everywhere and in its most essential,
after. inclusive and expansive forms. It reminds us
The principle and practice of Kuumba that we must have faith in the future and the
(Creativity) commits us to work and struggle new world we seek to bring into being in
for a new world and a new us that is rooted in order to imagine and build them. And it is a
the ancient African ethical imperative of faith that teaches us to believe that through
serudj ta which is a moral obligation to con- hard work, long struggle and a whole lot of
stantly repair, renew and remake the world, love and understanding, we can with other
making it more beautiful and beneficial than oppressed, struggling and progressive peo-
we inherited it in the process and practice or ples reimagine and redraw the map of the
repairing, renewing and remaking ourselves. world and put in place and develop condi-
It teaches and urges us, in our relations with tions and capacities for everyone to live in
each other, others and the earth, to raise up dignity-affirming, life-enhancing and world-
what is in ruins, to repair what is damaged, to preserving ways and come into the fullness of
rejoin what is separated, to replenish what is themselves.▲
DR. MAULANA KARENGA, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, California State University-Long
Beach; Executive Director, African American Cultural Center (Us); Creator of Kwanzaa; and author of
Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture and Essays on Struggle: Position and
Analysis, www.OfficialKwanzaaWebsite.org, www.MaulanaKarenga.org;
www.AfricanAmericanCulturalCenter-LA.org; www.Us-Organization.org.
