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An interview with' \ ,
,MauJanaK�
By Joseph Young
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WIult is t/Ie COIIII�;011 be 1M
Npio StlbG (Seven· PrUtciplesJ IIItd
K *I '
The Seven Princi , you bow,
are the core of Kwanzaa. , Kwuazaa
• the only y celebrated DOD­
heroic hoIidaf e have in the COUDtl'y.
When I created Kwanzaa in 1966, wIlat I
anted to do to introduce and rein-
force a value y em, a
value y tern that d give us a social
morality, tandards of right and wrong
th t not only ere religious but had
social and piritual impli ' ,Many
time p op h ve .relisi values, b
th Y don't e them seriou y, What
anted to do w to transform things
from imple religion into a sp·rituality
and a i I morality. .
Wh8t I mean by that is that e need
tandard 0 right and wrong that build
d reinforce a people - "righteous­
n rai a people up" - an ancient
Egyptian ying which the JewS borrow­
ed, We believe that if people could
. folio\\' these . principles � "unity."
the Seven Principles, their whole life
Idchange.
These princi are, you mow:
unity, self-determination," collectiVe
and .. , cooperative ea>-
. ' ,purpoae (the coIIedWe vocation
I � " ,and
y faith - Ii' 'ounel faith '
the . and viCtory � culture.
tbrcuah hard and
'itep oathe
of h .. i ..... _, as a �, �
produdive people. So be-
came the by. cOuld
lIIbodoce and Seven PriD-
val
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By Verne« Hon.�wood
A,� tlte Seven Principles II sort of 'that anymore, It means debt, It means
lUU .... u· t ideology? . big presen that you can't afford for
Do they have a humanistic content and people you don't like, but you ,. got to
character? It' not correct simply to say front for," 1bat' hat it mean , It
that they are human' . ideology, They means busin men's sales; i mean
have humanistic character - that i to bj$ money, I means lying and getting
y, they are concerned with human lib- ' drunk, but i doesn't have anything
eratio . We are interested in B liber- to do with Jes s, except for a sacred few.
atiori which will set a paradigm, a model,
for other people in the world in their
struggl in terms of how they should
organize and live their lives.
Is K wanzoa a Black Christmas? I
Oh, no f Of course it's not a Black
Otristmas, ThAt' u ing the white man's
holiday as the basis for discussing our
own, We were before the white man; we
were before J , Jesus went to school
in Africa, in Egypt, so we don't need to
have a BI Christmas, What e need
is a If-detennined holiday that
to us, that peW our own truth and
orpnizes and em iches our own life,
, I
Is ;t GppI'Opritlle for OM to cekbrtlte.
CjrUtma IIIfIIK wtl1IZIIII1
People may do they... My de·
'.. i that people the two.
_. One of the people cele-·
brate Kwanzaa· that they have found
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""'1OKIJIIIa conunerna'stic ..,.. •• _.
Iy bankrupt, mean in
the earlier days W»r beina
bora for the 't
that ration lly seem to be the on e
needed most in America. You can have
those values if you're a Christian. Th 's
why Christian • Moslems, Buddhi t ,
Yoruba - all th Blac and nonbe­
lievers nd African traditi nal beli vers
- all of them celebrate Kwanzaa.
Thi i a nati n holiday. It i not a
religious holiday. It-i n t a cI holi-
Are you asking Black foils to chaos day. It i a nati nal h liday th t unit
between Maulana Kar nga's Seven Blae .around a set of prin ipl with
Principles and Christianity? which all of them can agree. You h ve to
Oh, no! I don't people to choose be totally m d no to be abl to agree
between the Seven Principle and that. with unity, Jf-determin i n, II ctive
I don't know if it's good to say Maulana , ark, or respon ibiJity. I man, every­
Karenga's Seven "'Prl nci pi , even body can gree with th
though I created it and it ca out of .--
our own history, out of African and Afro­
American history, I_t's a national adapta­
tion of a tradition, I mean, e could
have had 52 principles, but Seven were
manageab . Seven had a spiritual signi­
ficance for us, and these were the on I
. thought that most represented the needs
and solutions to Black problems.
When I wrote up the Seven Princi ,
I did it a result � studying traditional
African societies .. and my question that
informed my research as: What is the
social element that holds these societies­
together, t.hat gives them a human char­
acter and ,pves them a capacity for
self.aeation? And I discovered that it
w c:oIledive val ,and so I chose sev­
en «the recurrent vaJu ,the ones
In a recent intervi w you aid tha:
. Black folks mu I d. cidc betw n Christ­
mas anO K wanzaa.
0, I didn't y th t.
And that they shouldn'� c � brute
them bolh at the ame lim .
No, I did say I wouldn't want them to
celebrate both at the sam time, See,
one of the thing about Kwanzaa itt
you can't realJy celebrate it and Chri -
mas at the same time. Otri tmas i on
the 25th. Kwanzaa begin on the 26th, so
you ought to have your tree � by
then, and you ought to be ng into
your holiday, regard I of wh t you do
religiously, The question i what you do
racially, ethnically and socially. See wh
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