Kwanzaa

Happy Kwanzaa!

Kwanzaa is celebrated from December 26 to January 1.

Tom wished Mary a happy Kwanzaa.

It's a week-long celebration called Kwanzaa, an African-American cultural holiday founded in the United States during the black power movement of the 1960s.

Today, hundreds of thousands of African-Americans across the U.S. observe Kwanzaa during the week leading up to New Year's Day on January 1.

Kwanzaa was essentially created in 1966 by a black activist named Maulana Karenga. He designed the holiday to help black Americans recognize their African heritage - and in turn to be proud of their African-American culture.

Kwanzaa celebrations center around the lighting of seven candles - each one representing a key principle of life such as unity, self-determination, creativity and faith.

On Tuesday night at the Club Serene in Brooklyn, Mayor Koch proclaimed Kwanzaa Week in New York. Then he told the crowd of about 400 that he had practiced his Swahili in order to pronounce correctly such exotic-sounding words as kujichagulia (self-determination), ujamaa (cooperative economics) and imani (faith), the theme of Kwanzaa '83.

But now, WASP's want their place in the multicultural sun. Social rituals are social rituals. If there is Kwanzaa, why not cotillions?

Spying a way to use her son’s enthusiasm for video games to teach him about investing, Jaydyn’s mother, Nina Carr, decided to invest in 10 shares of GameStop at $6.19 a share for a Kwanzaa gift.