The Complete Kwanzaa: Celebrating Our Cultural Harvest

A resource guide to Kwanzaa is organized around the seven principles and describes the traditions, practices, and cultural foundations of the holiday.

"All ethnic groups seek acceptance in society and their place in the universal order," writes educator Dorothy Winbush Riley. "And each group, through holidays, demonstrates its interpretation of human experience." For millions of African Americans, the week after Christmas is a time to celebrate Kwanzaa by reflecting upon seven principles, among them creativity, cooperation, and faith, which are considered the foundation of successful societies. Riley elaborates upon each of these principles through a combination of first-person narratives, poetry, folktales, quotations, and proverbs. The section on Kujichaguila (self-determination), for example, includes poems from Riley, Nikki Giovanni, and Serena Gordon, and excerpts from Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery and Michael Jordan's Rare Air. Ultimately, Riley says, the principles of Kwanzaa cannot be relegated to seven days at the end of the year; if we really want to take Kwanzaa to heart, we must live it in every moment.