Kwanzaa Celebrates Community With An Eye To The New Year

For the past 60 years, Kwanzaa has celebrated African American culture for the week between Christmas and the New Year. January 1 was the final day of Kwanzaa festivities, which call on observers to reflect on seven principles, including Umoja, or unity, and Ujima, or collective work.

Chris Schulz sat down with Javier McCoy, interim director of the West Virginia University Center for Black Culture to talk about the holiday.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Schulz: Before we get into Kwanzaa and the specifics around that, can you tell me a little bit about the Center for Black Culture and the work that you do here on campus? 

McCoy: The Center for Black Culture is a hub for black students away from home, whatever they need – social engagement wise, community wise, academic wise. We try to be that resource for them, help them find the other resources on campus, but also be a community, like a home away from home.

Schulz: Can you tell me a little bit about what Kwanzaa is and its history?

McCoy: My family used to celebrate Kwanzaa many, many years ago. It was another gathering of us to be in community with one another and celebrate some uplifting principles. But it’s very much a community based holiday, typically around food, around just being with one another in fellowship. And so I think Kwanzaa is an awesome celebration if you celebrate it, some people do, some people don’t. I think some people are still learning about Kwanzaa, and then they’re starting to celebrate it. And some people have been celebrating Kwanzaa for a very long time. 

Schulz: What exactly goes into the week of Kwanzaa? 

McCoy: So I think it’s really how you choose to celebrate it. Kwanzaa is a seven-day celebration. You can celebrate each principle of Kwanzaa every day. There is a principle that goes with each day. But some people just celebrate one day and kind of talk about all the principles in its entirety, and celebrate them together instead of going the whole seven days. There are some candles that you light for each principle. It’s a black candle, and then some red candles, and then some green candles. And then each day you light a candle depending on the principle. 

One of the principles is nia, which means purpose and to make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness. So when we talk about, what is your purpose in life? What are you called on this earth here to do? What do you think your purpose is here? Mine, I work in higher education. I’m working with students. I want them to be their best selves and get across the finish line. So that’s what I consider my purpose. And so when we talk about nia, specifically, it’s, how are you contributing to the community? How are you impacting the community? Are you serving your purpose in the community as well? 

Schulz: Do you have an understanding of why your family chose to start celebrating Kwanzaa at some point?

McCoy: One of my aunts worked at the Smithsonian, so she was always involved in African culture. And working there, we got to experience a variety of just historic things that would happen at the Smithsonian. So we would go to the annual Kwanzaa celebration. It was African choirs, big choirs, a lot of singing, a lot of proclamations, a lot of affirmations. And to see all these people gathered was amazing. 

I lived overseas for about eight-to-nine years, and my mom planned a big Kwanzaa celebration when we were in England with all of the people that was on the Menwith Hill base. It was an amazing time to bring people together. Again, we are overseas, away from our families, not able to come home. We were able to find community where we were in England, and we had an amazing event for my family in particular. 

It was a time for us to really celebrate each other, celebrate the year, and focus on what we wanted to do for the next year, while helping the community, serving our community, and again, being just with each other. I think typically in black culture, anything around community has always been amazing. I think fellowshipping with people, hearing stories. I remember at the Smithsonian, there were people just telling their stories, what they had been through in the past year, how they struggled, but how they also got over. 

Schulz: If there’s anything that I haven’t given you a chance to discuss with me, or anything that we have touched on that you’d like to highlight.

McCoy: I think Kwanzaa is a great learning opportunity. I think it allows us to see different cultures celebrate different things. I’m a big culture person. I like to explore and see what other cultures do and learn. So I think this is the opportunity for us to bring Kwanzaa to the front light. Hopefully we’re able to do something next year. It is on my list for sure to do something that we can educate, bring the community together and showcase Kwanzaa. It might not be during the traditional time just because of the academic calendar. Typically, this is celebrated right after Christmas into the new year. The university is closed. Students are away from break. If we want this to be a very student-led kind of community event, we don’t have any students. But that doesn’t mean that we might can’t do something before we go on break, then we run into finals week, we run into the last week of classes. So I think we have to be kind of strategic of how we bring this celebration to campus and educate on what the celebration is, but we will make sure that our focus is to have an event that not just students can come to, but also our community members can come to as well, and we can have a group celebration.