In Black America; The Celebration of Kwanza

From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is in Black America. I also like to talk about, you know, the Kintit cloth, I've taught my grandchild about the Kintit cloth, which is strips of raw silk that are woven usually by men in West Africa that are put together and they're worn by kings and queens in Africa. And I explain the history of that, there's a Endinkra cloth, which is usually worn during times of bereavement. I have different pieces of fabric that I explained to her what they mean and what the symbols mean on them. We have African masks, we have African sculpture, we have photographs of famous African American suits. It's a way of incorporating a lot of history and a condensed spirit of time. And it's also a fun way with kids, we make a lot of African crafts, we've done weaving the same weaving that's done for the Kintit cloth, I've showed my grandchild how to do that. You can do it with two straws, I have it in the seven days of Kwanzaa, but how you can use two straws and some yarn and show them how the weaving process is done in Africa. We talk about basket making, this is a lot of wonderful things that you can do that you

can impress upon a child for a lifetime in a couple of days, you know, it's an opportunity you don't get very often, I think, to really instilling them, the history and the heritage and the pride that they need to have to sustain them. Angela Schelfmaderis, award-winning author and storyteller. Kwanzaa is a unique African-American celebration with focus on the additional values of family, community responsibility, commerce and self-improvement. Kwanzaa is neither political nor religious, and despite some misconception is not a substitute for Christmas. It is simply a time of reaffirming African-American people, their ancestors and culture. Kwanzaa, which means first fruits of harvest in the African-language Swahili, has gained tremendous acceptance. Founded in 1966 by Dr. Miley and Kamaranga, Kwanzaa has come to be celebrated by more than 15 million people worldwide. I'm John L. Hanson Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. On this week's program, the celebration of Kwanzaa with Angela Schelfmaderis in Black

America. The traditional way that Dr. Kringo had to set up is when you get up in the morning, you say, a greeting, and the answer is always the first day of the first day or the second day or the third day. So, you wake up and you say, you know, what's the news? How bar-goney and you would reply unity or self-determination or whatever day it is. And some people fast all day. And then they have their evening meal and they like the candle and discuss the principle and then they have their evening meal. That's one way of doing it. You know, I have a regular full of life. So, that fast is not going to work for me. And getting up in the morning if I can get a good morning and a hello or, you know, see after work, you know, that's great. So, we don't really have the time to do all that. So, basically, our main celebration of Qantas in the evening and the big celebration is on December

the 31st. Qantas, the African-American spiritual holiday, was formulated, devised, developed, and initiated by Dr. Malani Ron Karenga on December 26, 1966. The operational underpinnings are based on the cultural principles of a theory called Kawadide. The Kawadide theory premises that social revolutionary change for Black America can be achieved by the act of revealing and disclosing individuals to their cultural heritage. Kawadide has definite principles, practices, and symbols, which are geared to the social and spiritual needs of African-Americans. The reinforcing gestures are designed to strengthen our collective self-concept as a people, honor our paths, critically evaluate our present, and commit ourselves to a fuller, more productive future. Kawadide is a way of life, not just a celebration. Recently in Black America spoke with Angela Schelf-Manderis. Dr. Karenga began Qantas in 1966 as a way of bringing the African-American community and Los Angeles together after the Watts riots.

He wanted to look into our history and our heritage and find a celebration that brought in the best parts of traditional African ceremonies and the best parts of African-American culture. So he did a lot of research and although Qantas is based in African traditions and holidays and celebrations, it's a truly African-American celebration and I've always thought it was commendable that one man could create a holiday like Qantas and nurture it and have it spread and have it embraced to the point where it is today where it's a pretty much a universally celebrated holiday and has become a custom with a lot of African-American families. So I think he well achieved his goal in really finding a way of bringing the community together in a way of also having us recognize and celebrate our history and our culture. Is Qantas a substitute for Christmas? Qantas is not a substitute for Christmas. There's a lot of misconceptions about Qantas and one is that it was started by African-Americans as a backlash against Christmas.

What Qantas is is a celebration of African-American culture, it's a cultural holiday. And basically, I think the whole misconception about it being an anti-Christmas is because Dr. Karanga wanted to celebrate Qantas after the Christmas season so that if you wanted to purchase things, things would be on sale. It was pretty much a wise economic move. Also, he wanted to have Qantas celebrated from the 26th through January 1st because he knew it was a time when people would be off and there would be a time you could easily celebrate the holiday. So it's definitely not anti-Christian, it's not anti-Christmas, it's just a cultural celebration. Like St. Patrick's Day or Senko Demayo. There are seven days within the Qantas celebration and what are those seven days? It starts December 26th and the first day is Emoja, which is unity and that's each day you're going to study the particular principles of Nugusa Saba principle of Qantas. And Nugusa Saba doesn't mean seven principles. So the first day is unity. The second day is Kuga Chagallia, which is self-determination and that's so that you can sit down and think about where you want your life to go and where you want your community to be headed in.

The third day is Ujima, which is collective work and responsibility and that's basically finding a way to maintain and build our community together and to make your brothers and sisters problems, your own problems. The fourth day is Ujama, which is cooperative economics and that's to build and maintain businesses and stores and that's the part that comes in about having the holiday after the Christmas season so that you can support black businesses and also get great discounts on gifts. Although that's not the economic thing, it's not the whole point about Qantas. The fifth day is Nia, which is purpose and really that's so that you can finally find the purpose in your own particular life and the thing I love about Qantas is the time to really sit down and think and get your head together and kind of step away from the hustle and bustle of your life and really determine what you're going to do for the new year. The sixth day is Kumbha, which is creativity and that's celebrating the artistic elements in your community and your own life and bringing out the creative part of your life. And the last day is Imani, which is faith and that's the first day of the new year,

falls on January 1st and that's the day to really assess your own spiritual beliefs, you know, the way that you want to enhance that spirituality in your life and to really just set your goals for the new year. So it's a beautiful holiday. My family loves it. We don't always have time to celebrate each and every last day so we've adapted it. It's easily adaptable to your own lifestyle. You don't have to celebrate every day, you don't have to do every last thing. It's not that kind of restrictive sort of celebration, but it's one that the African-American community really does need to look at and study and start to celebrate if they haven't already. Each day is celebrated with a candle. Right. And there are different colors for those candles. Different colors for each day. And the candles also have the colors also mean something. The black candle in the center is for unity. And that also represents the color of our people, African-American people. The red candles, the reason why it's red is for the blood of the struggle. It's for the struggle that you've been through. And those three candles represent the first, the second,

third and fourth day of the holiday. And then so you have the red struggle. You go into the black unity candle and then you have the green prosperous sort of candles. You have your cooperative economics. You have your creativity and you have your faith in unity candles that finish off the canara, which is the base that the candles are set in. And the canara is usually just a wooden carved base. And you have your candles and you put one candle in each day. So for the first day, which is unity, you would like the black candle. Then you'd light a red candle for the next three days. And then you'd like the green candles the next three days. And so the last candle would be the green one that you'd light on January 1st. Is there a difference between the public ceremonies of the lighting of the candles versus what you would do in your own home? Not really. It's basically what we do at home when we do it, when we celebrate Kwanza. We normally wait till New Year's Eve to celebrate Kwanza. We don't do every day because it's just impossible with my schedule and my family schedule to get everybody together to do that. But on New Year's Eve, we go through, we go through the candle lighting

ceremony. And we also talk about what each of the Nuguzasava principles means to us. So we talk about unity. We talk about self-determination. We talk about the faith and creativity. And as we light each candle, each person has an opportunity to say what that particular principle means to them. And we just go through the whole candle lighting ceremony. And then we have a big party and lots of food and exchange gifts. And it's, you know, it's great. And we have people of all races that come to celebrate Kwanza with us because most non-African-Americans really have really no understanding of all of the holiday, really never really studied your culture, your background. It was a great way to really inform people about African-American culture to show them how Kwanza celebrated and to bring them in our home and show them a different slice of life. How are we going to go about and accumulating all what is necessary to celebrate Kwanza? It's really, the main things you need to celebrate Kwanza are the candles which are easily purchased at any party store, or any, you know, Walmart, any place. The Kwanara, if you can't get one carved out of wood,

it's pretty easy to either make them. You can even make them out of egg shell cartons if you want to. Okay. And then just decorate it up. That's, you know, pretty simple every day. Some you can do with your family. You can do it with your kids. You know, I've done them as a child's project before just taking an egg shell cart and cutting it up and putting the foil in to hold the candles. And that's basically it. Or you can use different sized candlesticks if you can't find a Kwanara. You can just use different sized candlesticks for that and have the tallest one be the black candle in the middle. The other thing you're going to need are a straw mat which is a macaque mat. And basically the straw mat is a foundation. It represents how the African community was built. It's built up, you know, and so that's what you put down first. And then you put your Kwanara on top of the straw mat. Also, we like a representation of fruits and vegetables in a bowl. And this is because Kwanzae means first fruits. That's the Swahili name means first fruits. And Dr. Kringa added an extra A to it. And basically the fruits and vegetables

are a representation of the fruits that were harvested during that time period. And the thanks giving celebration that Kwanzae is based on. Also two are more ears of corn. One for every child in the family. And if you don't have any children. Yeah. The ears of corn represent one for every child in the family. And if you don't have children, you still put two ears of corn because we are all responsible for our children. You know, it's the saying it takes the village to raise a child. That's why the two ears of corn are there because we want to be sure that even if we don't have children or own, we're still looking out for our African-American children. So you have the two ears of corn or more if you have more children. And you have a cup or a goblet which is the unity cup. And the goblet is passed around. And the way that we do it is that we feel the goblet with water. And we pass around and each person calls out the name of someone who's deceased or someone they want to remember. And we pass it all the way around the room. And usually my husband will pour a little bit of the water on the floor and say the name first and then start it around the room. So that goblet's on there as a representation of people who are no longer with

us and who inspired us. And sometimes I put sculptures, African sculptures on my little Kwanzae table. I just set it up on a buffet table that I have in my house. I put African books about African-American history and African history on there. I put a copy of the seven principles that I've just typed up and I put in a frame. I put that there. Sometimes people put the African-American flag, unity flag, which is a red, black, and green flag. They have a, I use the red, black, and green colors. I usually put a tablecloth that has made out of African fabric. I put that down. It's really pretty. And I really enjoy doing that. And so we set that up. And I put that out immediately on December 26th when I set up the Kwanzae table. And you know, it's just, it's just been really enjoyable celebration. It's been a great way for me to teach my grandchild about African-American history and culture and to do things with her that are represent a representation of our history and our culture and to talk about our family history. It's, you know, it's just a great holiday. How do you go about decorating your home if you're celebrating Christmas? Do you need a

section of the living room? You got to work with the tree. Well, I, well, I have my trees up. I'll leave my tree up. It's up during the entire Kwanzae time. And as I said, I have just a little table. You can use a little table. You can use a little stand. You could, you could set it out on maybe your regular dining room table. Just put the canara out and then put the other things out as you celebrate the holiday. It's, it's, it's totally a flexible holiday. So what you have space for, what you have time for and what you have room for, that's the things you incorporate. I use a red, black and green thing, which is red and green are already Christmas colors. So it's pretty easy to incorporate the black in there. I use red, black and green place settings. I serve red, black and green food. I do. I have ochre with red tomatoes. I have black beans. I say, you know, I serve things that fit in with it. So, you know, it's just fun. I want to do fun things. And so it's pretty easy to, to celebrate both of the holidays. You know, and of course, you're setting up your tree. Some people set it up as early as the day after Thanksgiving. So

that's done and out of the way. And then I know my quanta table goes in the same place every year, just like my tree goes in the same place every year. So it's pretty easy. It gets to the gift parts since it's after Christmas. Right. And you might be broke. It might be broke or close to it. The great thing about quanta is that the gifts are supposed to be their handmade. Okay. Or you're supposed to purchase a book written by or about an African American or an African person. So since they're either handmade or homemade or it's a book, you can start planning your quanta gifts selections while books are on sale during the Christmas season. Usually that's one of the best buying times for books. Or if you want to make homemade gifts, which I do quite often, one year I gave homemade vinegars. And that's so easy. You basically just, you know, heat your vinegar. You can put in, I put in herbs in one and I put in peppers in another and I put in peppercorns and you just let it sit and kind of shake it up every day for, you know, a couple of days and then put in a pretty bottle to tie the bow on and gave it as a gift. My grandchild is made taking stamps and just made little stamp cards that people

can use as little postcards. You can do any number of things. Anything that you normally like to make or buy or bake, you can be given as a quanta president. Normally those presents are given out on January 1st. How do you go about explaining quanta on a level in which your grandchild can understand? Well, basically each day you're supposed to discuss the principle. And so, when we talk about unity, I tell her that's the people coming together and my books that I've written about quanta are all are broken down from the simplest one. I have one called the seven days of quanta, which is for children and it breaks it down in the simplest possible format and also tells you how you can make the gifts and incorporate the history. And I also have biographies for unity, for instance, what I do is instead of just trying to break down the word unity, I might use a person's life as an example of what unity meant. And one of them I talk about, I talk about Cheyenne Webb who was a little girl who was seven who worked with Dr. Martin Luther King and I talk

about how she was working to bring black people together to fight for their civil rights. I talk about Women Rudolph for self-determination because she was Pat Polio. And here she was one of the fastest women in the world. I talk about African Americans like IWS Barnett for collective work and responsibility who convince an entire town of black folks to move because they weren't being treated right. So you can use people's lives and also teach history and also teach the principle just that simply and my grandchild six. So it's a great way to teach her about African Americans who've done fabulous things and she understands what the word means the same way from those stories. Is it difficult and ascertaining the information for Kwanza? In your opinion. There are more books written about Kwanza. Now I've written three books about Kwanza and Dr. Karanga has a book that you know of course is the definitive work on Kwanza and then there are other books from picture books to you know to all sorts of books about Kwanza. So no I think there's more information now about Kwanza but it's just that people still don't really have time to

sit down and really read all that stuff. So that's why I like to do programs like this where we can simply explain what you need what you need to do and explain to people how easy it is to really celebrate it because it's it's a really you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't try at least one of the days to really investigate how to celebrate it. Getting to your expertise obviously the Kwanza Feast. Kwanza Feast. The cookbooks I've written all contain information about Kwanza. It's called the African American Kitchen. It's a series of books and the reason why I really think that the feast is vitally important because just like any holiday I can't think of a holiday that didn't have food connected to it. I really they're very so very few holidays. It don't have some kind of eating involved and you know that's what people really want to do particularly around the Christmas season. So what I like to do like I said I like to incorporate foods that not only have the theme the colors but I also like to incorporate foods that I know are based in African traditions and culture foods that I know that we made our definitely our contribution to American culinary history and and I know for sure that African Americans introduce

sesame and the olive produces they introduce black eye peas they introduce peanuts and they introduce okra called gumbo which gumbo is actually an African from an African dialect to to American cuisine so all of those things should be on your table with sesame you could either cook something and sesame oil or you could sprinkle some sesame seeds on top of some of your bread with the okra you can do a fabulous gumbo you know with the black eye peas oh you know you got to have black eye peas for New Year's Day so then all of their good luck symbol but they're part of your your history and your traditions and your culture and so you can incorporate all those things the peanuts you know great appetizer but they also were used in Africa as a thickening ingredient so you can grind them up blend them up I put peanut butter on turkey and it keeps the skin moist and it gives it a whole different flavor it's wonderful you can also put a peanut butter in a sauces like with a tomato based sauce and it gives it a whole different flavor you don't taste the peanut butter but it's really one of the best sauces I've ever had. Wait don't go you put

peanut butter on the turkey on a broad turkey. Well you spread the peanut butter a little bit of peanut butter like you would butter you know normally you would take butter and spread it on turkey you can take peanut butter and spread it on there and it gives it gives it the same effect it keeps it moist it gives it some fat and some some oil and it gives it a different flavor it's really good yeah so if you have like a turkey slice or something you want to put peanut butter on it's it's it's it's very very unusual for Americans to think that you can use peanut butter anything other than two slices of white bread or something but but in Africa peanuts ground peanuts in some form are used as a source of protein and as a thickener like wheeze flour so this is a lot of different ways you can do that in this particular book I've the ideas for entertaining from the African-American Kitchen under the Qanza section I have a soul food dip which is ground greens ground greens you you cook your greens you can take frozen greens cook them you put them through a food processor with some lemon zest and your salt and pepper and garlic and whatever you like you mix it with cream cheese and cream a mushroom soup and it's a dip it's a great dip it's sort of like spinach dip but just a little more soul a spinach dip with a lot more

soul is what it really is and you serve it warm with a little hot sauce oh baby it is really good and then the other thing I have are you know just different recipes that are African recipes that I've adapted one of my favorite is Congo chicken that's that's using you boil the chicken with some red peppers you make a sauce out of tomato sauce peanut butter a lot of seasonings and then you pour that back over the the bowl chicken and let it simmer a little while serving with some rice you will kill yourself and it's just you know it's really some great some great African recipes that Americans don't recognize and don't use that I wanted to incorporate as part of the Qantas celebration in part of my everyday menu because it's just it's just some fabulous food and if you think about it African Americans have had our hands and American kitchens forever and although we may not receive any credit for the things that we've developed and created we still are one of the main producers of the creative dishes that have come out of the kitchens all over the United States so it's you know even though these may sound unusual they really are

wonderful recipes it just haven't been recognized you cook a different meal for the seven days do I cook a different meal every day I cook a different meal every day anyway okay I mean you know that's but that's just me but you know for for the Qantas feast if you want to do something a blow out sort of feast thing that's why I have an appetizer that you can fix fairly easily and and most of these things can be prepared ahead of time you don't have to you know kill yourself all in one day trying to do everything you can do a little bit here and a little bit there you can cook the greens ahead of time they could be leftover greens and they'll work just fine too so the recipes that I have in all my cookbooks are simple enough for a woman who has an eight-hour job and then another eight-hour job when she gets off that eight-hour job trying to take care of her family so that or a man who loves to cook and you know has an eight-hour job and has another eight-hour job when he gets home so I wanted them simple and the ingredients easily accessible and have things that you could get together and prepare and still go and have fun with your friends during the holidays wouldn't be you know tied up in the kitchen the entire time now I like okra you have an okra

fingers okra fingers what's up with that well basically I wanted to have recipes that were you know like I said okra is something that I know was a definite contributions by Africans to American cuisine and I wanted to have something that would be like an appetizer and so these okra fingers are basically deep fried okra but they're not they're not so heavily breaded they're the whole okra pod and it's coated with some baking powder and cornmeal and also another really good coating ingredient which I just discovered is cornstarch you can mix cornstarch and cornmeal and it's lighter and it fries it's so beautifully brown so you have these deep fried okra fingers which take you know snap to prepare and the West African dish that I have included as part of the menu can be prepared a couple of days ahead you can just fry up the okra fingers you know have your sesame bread you know have your appetizer ahead of time it's pretty simple so that you can sit down with your friends and family or have it as a stand-up

a fake kind of thing where you don't have to sit down and do anything you just you know put it out there and you're done so that's the kind of things I want I want to holiday food and the breads and desserts you have the bacon cheese bread bacon cheese bread the bacon cheese bread is basically just already pre-cooked French bread it's already been baked that you just pick up you spread it with butter put on some green onions some good dejon mustard some poppy seeds or sesame seeds some Swiss cheese a couple of slices of bacon you know you cook that up so I'll bubbly and crisp and wonderful and you put that out you slice it up and put it out and people think you really killed yourself and it's nothing I mean you know the bread's baked so you know so basically I wanted things that look like you just have really really killed yourself so everybody would be volunteered to clean up because they think you work so hard but you have it and that's the trick to all of it I have simple ingredients I have simple preparation steps I have things that can be prepared well in advance even the okra fingers you can have all your ingredients prepared in advance in other words you can have the cornmeal and the and everything already seasoned so all you have basically have to do is take the cleaned okra pods dip them in there heat up your oil fry

and you're done and I think the whole process of frying them takes two or three minutes so that you know you're not going to be working along you know none of these recipes are going to take you a long time and the main dish is what the main dish could be anything I mean you can do the Congo chicken as a buffet item with as chicken wings you know and and and really inexpensive parts and it just have little drum mitts you could do something as big as this West African couscous which is you know chicken on a bed of zucchini and eggplant and cabbage and turnips so you can have all it's just a basically couscous mixed up with a with a variety of winter vegetables you know you can just serve the couscous couscous if you're vegetarian with no chicken in it and he's a vegetarian broth to moisten it instead of using a chicken broth just just just a variety of things you can do with this that you know that require very little preparation and not a whole lot of having to plan and and shop and stand and do you know I don't want to do any of that during the holidays I want to spend most of my time with the people who've come to visit me and my family so I try to think

of things that are going to be really really simple and really really easy and really really good when you celebrate the different days of quanza do you celebrate that particular day at the same time every day or you whenever you get around well no it depends on how much time you have the traditional way that Dr. Keringo had a set up is when you get up in the morning you say a greeting and you and you and the answer is always the first day of the first day or the second day or the third day so you wake up and you say you know what's the news Habar Ghani and you would reply unity or self-determination or whatever day it is and some people fast all day and then they have their evening meal and they discuss they like the candle and discuss the principle and then they have their evening meal that's one way of doing it you know I have a regular full of life so that fast is not going to work for me and getting up in the morning if I can get a good morning and a hello or you know see after work you know that's great so we don't really have the time to to to do all that so basically our main celebration of quanzas in the

evening and the big celebration is on December the 31st so and that's what's worked for us and that's what I love about is not you know if you don't it's not where if you don't do this you can't do that. Angela's shelf Madera's noted author and storyteller if you need more information on quanza you can call the kitchen diva at 1-800-224-9662 if you have questions, comments or suggestions asked your future in Black America programs write us also let us know what radio station you heard us over the views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin until we have the opportunity again for technical producers David Alvarez and Cliff Hargrove I'm John L. Hanson Jr. wishing you and yours a happy new year and please join us again next week. Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America cassettes communication building B UT Austin Austin Texas 78712

from the University of Texas at Austin. This is the Longhorn Radio Network I'm John L. Hanson Jr. join us this week on in Black America. You adapt it for the things that you want to adapt it for because the main point of it is discuss the principles and to find a way to pull yourself and your community up into the new year. The celebration of quanza with Angela's shelf Madera's this week on in Black America.