Wave Staff and Wire Reports
LOS ANGELES — The seventh and final day of Kwanzaa takes place Jan. 1.
The Leimert Park Merchants Association will hold a candlelight ceremony at 5 p.m. at Queen Aminah’s, 4339 Degnan Blvd., to conclude it’s Kwanzaa activities.
Kwanzaa’s focus is the “Nguzo Saba,” the seven principles, all of which derive from Swahili words. Each night is dedicated to one of the principles, beginning with Umoja — unity, expressing the goal of striving for and maintaining unity in the family and community.
The principle for the seventh night is Imani (faith).
A flag with three bars — red for the struggle for freedom, black for unity and green for the future — are often displayed during the holiday.
Kwanzaa is based on the theory of Kawaida, which espouses that social revolutionary change for Black America can be achieved by exposing Blacks to their cultural heritage.
Kwanzaa was created in 1966 by Maulana Karenga in what he called “an audacious act of self-determination.”
“Kwanzaa was conceived and born in the womb, work and transformative struggles of the Black freedom movement,” Karenga wrote in the 2023 founder’s message. “And thus, its essential message and meaning was shaped and shared not only in sankofa initiatives of cultural retrieval, of the best of our views, values and practices as African peoples.
“It was also shaped by that defining decade of fierce strivings and struggles for freedom, justice and associated goods waged by Africans and other peoples of color all over the world in the 1960s. Kwanzaa thus came into being, grounded itself and grew as an act of freedom, an instrument of freedom, a celebration of freedom and a practice of freedom.”
Karenga announced his retirement last month as chair of the Africana Studies Department at Cal State Long Beach.
Kwanzaa’s 2025 theme is “Practicing the Seven Principles in Dimly-Lit Times: Lifting Up the Light, Hurrying the Dawn,” Karenga announced in his annual founder’s message.
“To speak of dimly-lit times is to talk of the thick fog of falsehood, fear, chaos, confusion and uncertainty that has emerged in this historical moment and settled heavily over the land,” Karenga said.
“Indeed, it is to speak of the rise of authoritarian and anti-democratic governments and practices, and increased levels of mean-spiritedness, human alienation from others and official and unofficial violence of varied kinds, including live-streamed genocide.
“And it is to speak too of the dimming of the light and life of the heart and mind. That is to say, the cultivation of the narrow and uncritical mind and the constricted heart which embrace illusions as real life and have a diminished capacity to fight through the fog, to rightfully reason and consciously demonstrate moral sensitivity for others, especially those different and vulnerable.”
