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Kwanzaa Family Celebration

UJIMA (Collective Work and Responsibility)

Ujima (Collective work and responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems and to solve them together.

Join the African American Research Library and Cultural Center for its annual Kwanza Ujima family celebration.   

Kwanzaa (/ˈkwɑːn.zə/) is an annual celebration of African American culture from December 26 to January 1, culminating in a communal feast called Karamu, usually on the sixth day. It was created by activist Maulana Karenga in 1966, based on African harvest festival traditions from various parts of West, East, as well as Southeast Africa.  

Kwanzaa celebrates what its founder called the seven principles of Kwanzaa, or Nguzo Saba (originally Nguzu Saba – the seven principles of African Heritage). They were developed in 1965, a year before Kwanzaa itself. These seven principles are all Swahili words, and together comprise the Kawaida or "common" philosophy, a synthesis of nationalist, pan-Africanist, and socialist values. 

Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the principles, as follows:

1. Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race. 

2. Kujichagulia (Self-determination): To define and name ourselves, as well as to create and speak for ourselves. 

3. Ujima (Collective work and responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems and to solve them together. 

4. Ujamaa (Cooperative economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together. 

5. Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness. 

6. Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it. 

7. Imani (Faith): To believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle. 

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