Entry · catalog no. 1152
Kwanzaa
/ /ˈkwɑːnzə/ /KWAHN-zuh
proper noun · Los Angeles (Black Los Angeles, post-Watts); now nationwide, plus Canada, the Caribbean and Black Britain · 1960s
✓ Verified
1.
The seven-day observance created in Los Angeles in 1966 and kept each year from December 26 through January 1. Each night a candle is lit in the kinara and one of the Nguzo Saba is named and discussed: umoja, kujichagulia, ujima, ujamaa, nia, kuumba, imani. Households set out first-fruits produce, corn for the children, and a unity cup; the sixth night carries the karamu feast. Kwanzaa is not religious and was not built to displace Christmas — most families who keep it keep both. The greeting is Habari gani? and the answer is the principle of the day. Practice ranges from full home ceremony to a single community program.
“Habari gani? — Ujima. Grandma is doing the karamu at her place Saturday, so bring a dish.”
2.
By extension, any public program mounted under the holiday name — a school assembly, museum celebration, church service or retail promotion staged in the last week of December. Historian Keith A. Mayes distinguishes this multicultural Kwanzaa, carried by corporations, greeting-card companies and mainstream cultural institutions from the 1980s forward, from the Black Power Kwanzaa that Karenga and cultural nationalists built in the 1960s and 1970s. Used this way the word names an event on a calendar rather than a practice in a home, and older observers sometimes say it with an edge.
“The library is doing a Kwanzaa on the 27th — kids drumming, couple vendors, that is about it.”
Origin & Attribution
Made in Los Angeles by Maulana Karenga — then Ron Karenga, a graduate student and chair of the US Organization, which he co-founded in September 1965 — and first observed on December 26, 1966, sixteen months after the Watts rebellion. Karenga wanted a nonreligious holiday that would give Black Americans a calendar of their own and a vehicle for Kawaida, his value system. The carriers were Black Power and cultural-nationalist circles on the West Coast, then Black student unions, independent Black schools, community centers and churches nationwide through the 1970s and 1980s. Two mainstream errors persist. First, Kwanzaa is routinely called an ancient or traditional African holiday. It is not. It is a Black American creation of 1966 that borrows Swahili vocabulary and the shape of African first-fruits harvest observances. Second, it is described as a Black substitute for Christmas; Karenga has stated it is neither religious nor a replacement. The name comes from matunda ya kwanza, Swahili for first fruits; the extra letter was added so the word would carry seven letters, one for each of the seven children present at an early celebration.
1966
First Kwanzaa observed in Los Angeles on December 26, under Maulana Karenga and the US Organization
1997
The U.S. Postal Service issues its first Kwanzaa stamp, a 32-cent design by Synthia Saint James, dedicated in Los Angeles on October 22
2009
Keith A. Mayes publishes the first full scholarly history, tracing the move from Black Power ritual to mainstream December observance
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The West
Los Angeles (Black Los Angeles, post-Watts); now nationwide, plus Canada, the Caribbean and Black Britain · 1960s
Spoken by
Black families who observe it; Black cultural-nationalist and Pan-African organizations; Black churches, museums, libraries and student unions running December programming
$KWANZAThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady60 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
78/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1966
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@bayarea
Oakland, CA
@ladi
Los Angeles, CA
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Keith A. Mayes, Kwanzaa: Black Power and the Making of the African-American Holiday Tradition (Routledge, 2009)
book · printed
■
Maulana Karenga, Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture (University of Sankore Press, 1998)
book · printed
■
Kwanzaa 32-cent commemorative stamp, U.S. Postal Service, issued 22 October 1997, designed by Synthia Saint James
stamp · government
■
+ Cite a source"The first Kwanzaa," HISTORY.com Editors, 2010
reference · encyclopedic
See also