The Case for Kwanzaa
Maybe it’s a corny holiday, but Black Americans deserve a time to remember that our identity doesn’t begin and end with oppression.
For a few years of my childhood, Kwanzaa was a big deal. I recall attending three Kwanzaa celebrations hosted by Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church in Baltimore. My cousin Olivia Moyd Hazell, at the time the church’s director of Christian education, organized them. About 50 church members and friends, many wearing kente cloth, would file into a softly lit basement the weekend after Christmas. We’d listen to good music: Black R&B standards, dance lines, and traditional djembe performed live. We’d eat familiar food, like collard greens and red beans and rice. And we’d speak unfamiliar words such as and . The mood was festive, but with a focus on giving everyone, children especially, time to speak about how the principles of
