Kwanzaa 2016 booklet

Colorado Springs Citywide

27thKwanzaa Celebration Annual

December 26, 2016

Hillside Community Center | 925 South Institute St. | Colorado Springs, CO 80903

Ph: (719) 385-7900

Welcome All!

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It’s A Celebration!

There is no need to romanticize our history for there are abundant reasons to be proud! Our journey has taken us literally from “pyramids, to projects”, and….back to power with the election of the first African American President of the United States of America!

We must simply know, honor, and “pass on” the true story of our history in order to ignite the Light that will inspire our youth, and generations yet unborn to reach for a better future. It is that Light that inspired our ancient African ancestors to raise the First Wonder of the World – The Great Pyramid from the dessert sands of Kemet (Egypt), to create writing, mathematics, astronomy, anatomy, medical sciences, architecture, civil engineering, literature, spirituality, religion, and to establish the first and longest civilization in the world.

us from developing personal strength, resilience, and psychological armor from a deep understanding, respect, and appreciation of our great history and culture.

It is essential that we (individually and collectively) regularly and very deliberately reinforce these values in order to not only honor our past and current challenges, but to also create hope for a better future. As a people, African Americans have overcome the worst of times and conditions, and yet we strive, achieve, and continue to stand because we stand upon the shoulders of giants!

It is that same Light that inspired great thinkers such as George W. Carver, Elijah McCoy, Drs. Daniel Hale Williams, Shirley A. Jackson, Cheikh Anta Diop, Asa G. Hilliard III, Ivan Van Sertima, George G.M. James, Marimba Ani, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and countless others whose lives, accomplishments, and contributions to modern civilization continue to positively impact our lives (whether we know it or not)! In this day and age, it is much too easy to get regularly “caught up” in an abundance of distractions that deter

Dr. Anthony P. Young, Founder Annual Colorado Springs Citywide Kwanzaa Celebration Dr. Young is Chief Executive Officer of Achieving Healthier Lifestyles, LLC and a Life Member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. He is a Past National President of the Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi) (2000-2001), and a Founding Member (1977) and current President of the DenverRocky Mountain Association of Black Psychologists.

2016 - 27th Annual Colorado Springs Citywide Kwanzaa Celebration Special Thanks to the Hillside Community Center staff

Art Direction, design and layout by Dwayne Glapion. GrafxMD.com

Affirmation Statement Kwanzaa 2017

We are an African people.

We will honor the Creator by the life that we live.

We will remember the humanity, the glory, and the suffering of our ancestors.

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We will honor the struggles of our elders, who will strive to reclaim, reconstruct, and restore our traditional values as an African people.

We will bring new light to our people.

27th Anniversary

We will have peace and harmony among us despite our differences.

We will be loving, caring, and creative.

We will work study, and listen.

Listen so we may learn.

Learn so we may teach.

We will cultivate our character and our minds.

We will struggle to resurrect and unify our community.

We will raise strong children for our nation.

We will have DISCIPLINE, PATIENCE, & COURAGE.

We will live as positive role models to provide new directions for our people.

We will be free and self-determining.

We are an African people.

And we will win!

And we will win!!

And we WIL L WIN!

The liberation of our minds and spirits, The reclamation of our history,

The economic freedom of our community

For the Redemption of African people in America and elsewhere.

Ashe’!

Lift Every Voice and Sing Lift Every Voice and Sing

By James Weldon Johnson

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Stony the road we trod, Bitter the chastening rod, Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; Yet with a steady beat, Have not our weary feet Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, Out from the gloomy past, Till now we stand at last Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, Thou who has brought us thus far on the way; Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light, Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee, Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee; Shadowed beneath Thy hand, May we forever stand.

True to our God, True to our native land.Â

Colorado Springs

Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; Let our rejoicing rise High as the listening skies, Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us, Facing the rising sun of our new day begun Let us march on till victory is won.

Roots & Branches Kwanzaa 2017

The Continental African Roots

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Kwanzaa is an African American and Pan-African holiday which celebrates family, community and culture. Celebrated from 26 December thru 1 January, its origins are in the first harvest celebrations of Africa from which it takes its name.

The name Kwanzaa is derived from the phrase “matunda ya kwanza” which means “first fruits” in Swahili, a Pan-African language which is the most widely spoken African language.

The first-fruits celebrations are recorded in African history as far back as ancient Egypt and Nubia and appear in ancient and modern times in other classical African civilizations such as Ashantiland and Yorubaland. These celebrations are also found in ancient and modern times among societies as large as empires (the Zulu or kingdoms (Swaziland) or smaller societies and groups like the Matabele, Thonga and Lovedu, all of southeastern Africa. Kwanzaa builds on the five fundamental activities of Continental African “first fruit” celebrations: ingathering;

reverence; commemoration; recommitment; and celebration. Kwanzaa, then, is: a time of ingathering of the people to reaffirm the bonds between them; a time of special reverence for the creator and creation in thanks and respect for the blessings, bountifulness and beauty of creation; a time for commemoration of the past in pursuit of its lessons and in honor of its models of human excellence, our ancestors; a time of recommitment to our highest cultural ideals in our ongoing effort to always bring forth the best of African cultural thought and practice; and a time for celebration of the Good, the good of life and of existence itself, the good of family, community and culture, the good of the awesome and the ordinary, in a word the good of the divine, natural and social.

The African American Branch Rooted in this ancient history and culture, Kwanzaa develops as a flourishing branch of the African American life and struggle as a recreated and expanded ancient tradition. Thus, it bears special characteristics only an African American holiday but also a Pan-African one, For it draws from the cultures of various African peoples, and is celebrated by millions of Africans throughout the world African community. Moreover, these various African peoples celebrate Kwanzaa because it speaks not only to African Americans in a special way, but also to Africans as a whole, in its stress on history, values, family, community and culture.

Kwanzaa was established in 1966 in the midst of the Black Freedom Movement and thus reflects its

concern for cultural groundedness in thought and practice, and the unity and self-determination associated with this. It was conceived and established to serve several functions.

Colorado

Kwanzaa was created in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga, professor, Department of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach, author and scholar-activist who stresses the indispensable need to preserve, continually revitalize and promote African American culture.

Finally, it is important to note Kwanzaa is a cultural holiday, not a religious one, thus available to and practiced by Africans of all religious faiths who come together based on the rich, ancient and varied common ground of their Africanness.

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Imani (Faith). This stress on the Nguzo Saba was at the same time an emphasis on the importance of African communitarian values in general, which stress family, community and culture and speak to the best of what it means to be African and human in the fullest sense. And Kwanzaa was conceived as a fundamental and important way to introduce and reinforce these values and cultivate appreciation for them.

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Reaffirming and Restoring Culture First, Kwanzaa was created to reaffirm and restore our rootedness in African culture. It is, therefore, an expression of recovery and reconstruction of African culture which was being conducted in the general context of the Black Liberation Movement of the ‘60’s and in the specific context of The Organization Us, the founding organization of Kwanzaa and the authoritative keeper of its tradition. Secondly, Kwanzaa was created to serve as a regular communal celebration to reaffirm and reinforce the bonds between us as a people. It was designed to be an ingathering to strengthen community and reaffirm common identity, purpose and direction as a people and a world community. Thirdly, Kwanzaa was created to introduce and reinforce the Nguzo Saba (the Seven Principles.) These seven communitarian African values are: Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (Self-Determination), Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility), Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity), and

Reclaiming

socialization Kwanzaa 2017

The hardest writing for me is the short essay. No full explanation is possible and generalizations require explanation, elaboration and documentation.

Nevertheless, I write here about one of my passionate concerns. It is about nothing less than the survival of African people, and especially about self-determination.

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African people everywhere are truly at a defining moment in our long history. We have the oldest and best-recorded history and culture in human history, which includes a deep spirituality, great creative genius, and a commitment to our collective well-being. We have ways of life that rival any tradition on earth. Much of this tradition remains within our communities at an unconscious level, or accessible to us with a little effort.

At one time we were whole. We knew ourselves and had a sense of our past, an appreciation of our culture and a sense of our common destiny. We assumed full responsibility for the socialization of our children and of our community in general.

That gave us a strong collective identity, bond and a shared direction.

Segregation, Colonization and white supremacy ideology had a devastating impact upon us. The greatest impact of all of these evil forces was the assault on and damage to our core views, a loss of clarity about who we are, a loss of our family bonds and social fragmentation; mainly because of the loss of control over the socialization of our people. Nothing is more central to our existence and survival than that. Without control over our socialization, there will be no politics, economics, even spirituality or anything else that is vital for us as a people. We will become the ultimate individual dependents of those who do control their own community socialization. By socialization, I mean schooling, training, education, and above all the intergenerational transmission of our culture.

Today, all over the African world, our children and we are being raised almost totally under the authority of and even hands on leadership of others.

Traditional spiritual and community leaders have been replaced by non-African leaders of thought and action. In the United States, it is hard to find anyplace where our children’s primary service leaders are within the African family. Forces outside our communities control virtually all socializing agencies and structures such as daycare, early schooling, public schools, higher education, mass media, entertainment, public policy, etc., ultimately. Many of those who control the agencies and leaders of our socialization have shown little or no support for us, for our potentiality or for our destiny. This condition came upon us gradually while we slept.

Even now, with fragmentation and disunity in our communities, we still have the power to reclaim control over our socialization of our children and re-socialization of ourselves. We can transform ourselves at any time of our own choosing. It merely takes a decision to do so. For that we must be awake, critical and informed about our context and ourselves. We must understand what has happened to us. We must know where to go for leadership that places our issues at the center of all efforts.

We have not yet failed the do what is required. We have not been trying to do what is required. We are busy “surviving,� accumulating, and wasting our precious time and resources. We have abandoned responsibility and activity. This condition must change immediately.

(Also see Asa G. Hilliard III, The Maroon Within Us: Lessons on African American Community Socialization. and Asa G. Hilliard III, SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind.

Pastor Jesse Brown Jr. 1st Vice President

Rev. Roger Butts 2nd Vice President

Rev. Orian A. Flournoy Sr. 3rd Vice President

Detra Duncan Branch Secretary

Sheila Eason Assistant Secretary

Frank D. Lytle Branch Treasurer

Jane Ard-Smith, Esq. June Christine Brown Robin Rene Koonce State Representative S. Pete Lee Rosemary Lytle Alma Robinson Mac Sergeant Matt Stys

Rosemary Lytle, President, NAACP CO-MT-WY State Area Conference

2210 E. LaSalle St. Suite 114, Colorado Springs, CO 80909 (719) 634-7813 (o) (719) 233-0243 (m) www.naacpstateconference.org stateconferencenaacp@gmail.com​

Colorado

Branch President

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Lisa Whitfield Villanueva

Colorado Springs

Join Us for the 2017 Installation Service* for the Executive Committee of ​ #4001, 11 AM Sunday, January 8, NAACP Colorado Springs Branch 2017, at True Spirit Baptist Church, 5120 Astrozon Blvd., Colorado Springs, CO 80916, Rev. Orian A. Flournoy Sr., Pastor

Kwanzaa 2017

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27th Anniversary

Colorado Springs

Kinara (The Candle Holder) This is symbolic of our roots, our parent people - continental Africans.

Mishumaa Saba (The Seven Candles) These are symbolic of the Nguzo Saba, the Seven Principles, the matrix and minimum set of values which African people are urged to live by in order to rescue and reconstruct their lives in their own image and according to their own needs.

Mkeka (The Mat) This is symbolic of our tradition and history and therefore, the foundation on which we build.

Mazao (The Crops) These are symbolic of African harvest celebrations and of the rewards of productive and collective labor.

Zawadi (The Gifts) These are symbolic of the labor and love of parents and the commitments made and kept by the children.

Kikombe cha Umoja (The Unity Cup) This is symbolic of the foundational principle and practice of unity which makes all else possible.

The two supplemental symbols are:Bendera (The Flag) The colors of the Kwanzaa flag are the colors of the Organization Us, black, red and green; black for the people, red for their struggle, and green for the future and hope that comes from their struggle. It is based on the colors given by the Hon. Marcus Garvey as national colors for African people throughout the world. Nguzo Saba Poster (Poster of The Seven Principles)

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Muhindi (The Corn) This is symbolic of our children and our future which they embody.

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Kwanzaa has seven basic symbols and two supplemental ones. Each represents values and concepts reflective of African culture and contributive to community building and reinforcement. The basic symbols in Swahili and then in English are:

Kwanzaa 2017

H A P P Y K WA N Z A A SERVING THE COLORADO Â

COMMUNITY SINCE 1977

DENVER-ROCKY MOUNTAIN ASSOCIATION O F B L ACK PSY CH OL O GIST S

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SAVE THE DATE Engage in a EMOTIONAL EMANCIPATION CIRLCLES (EECs) Courageous Conversation!

BEGINNING 2016 Follow us & Get More Information about the EECs facebook.com/Denver-Rocky-Mountain-Association-of-Black-Psychologists

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13 Colorado

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Kwanzaa 2017

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