Musicians celebrate Kwanzaa at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum in Baltimore. (Courtesy photo)
Jeff Menzise, Ph.D., a professor at Morgan State University and a speaker at Baltimore’s Reginald F. Lewis Museum’s upcoming Kwanzaa celebration, thinks that it’s great to celebrate the holiday in December, but it might be even better if we could celebrate it all year long.
“It’s an excellent tool if we properly use it,” Menzise said. “What I find is that we wait until these seven days to kind of incorporate and start talking about these principals. But I think that it’s something that should be implemented throughout the year because these principals are solid. There’s nobody that would not benefit from becoming more self-determining, strengthening their faith, becoming more creative, understanding what their purpose is, living in unity, cooperative work and economics, collective responsibility.”
The celebration was started by Maulana Karenga, a professor of African studies, in 1966. It is observed by many people of African descent all over the world and was created as a way to help unify Black people while affirming and creating their own cultural identity. This year, the holiday starts on Dec. 26 and runs through Jan. 1. Each day of Kwanzaa is dedicated to a Swahili word for a specific cultural value. There is umoja, or unity; kuji-chagulia, self-determination; ujima, collective work and responsibility; ujamaa, cooperative economics; nia, purpose; and imani or faith.
The Reginald F. Lewis museum holds an event every year honoring the celebration. This year’s event will be held on Dec. 27 at 1 p.m. In addition to Menzise’s talk on kuji-chagulia, or self-determination, there will also be music, dancing and crafts. The museum will charge a special $5 entry price instead of the usual $6-8 admission price.
Menzise said his message is especially relevant as the fight against police brutality and racism rages, especially here in Baltimore.
“I definitely plan to touch on how many of our youth are having negative experiences with police officers, how overt expressions of racism are on the rise and how we can really take this opportunity to define whatever it is that we’re going to experience in life – reclaim our power from the folks that have been dictating how we’re going to do our thing,” he said.
“It’s an excellent tool, but we have to take it beyond the holiday,” he said.
He said that he would love to see people take the emphasis off the Swahili words and instead just focus on incorporating the values they stand for into their everyday lives.
“I don’t want to be mistaken and people think that I’m saying that it’s weak and there’s nothing beneficial to it, because it’s absolutely beneficial. But I’m always looking for that next level. Let’s see how we can really take this from just these seven days in December going into January and actually make this something that’s really empowering to our youth. Something that our teenagers, our elementary school, our newborns, our parents-to-be or our new couples – that they can actually take these principals, incorporate them into their everyday life and then really exemplify the greatness and the brilliance that comes with this.”
