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The Annual Founder’s Kwanzaa Message – 2004

“Kwanzaa and the Seven Principles:

Creating and Practicing Good in the World”

Dr. Maulana Karenga

Creator of Kwanzaa

This Kwanzaa millions of Africans all over the world come again together to celebrate family, community and culture and to recommit themselves to creating and practicing good in the world, using theNguzo Saba, the Seven Principles, as the fundamental framework and foundation to achieve this. Thus, as our ancestors and elders before us, we come again together to reinforce the bonds between us as persons and peoples, and to give thanks for the harvest of good we have gathered from the fertile fields of our lands, the fruitful fields of our lives, and the bruising and blood-stained battlefields of our struggles.

Created in the context of the Black Freedom Movement of the 60’s, Kwanzaa reflects the Movement’s dual stress on reaffirmation of our Africanness and our social justice tradition. Kwanzaa is thus a self-conscious commitment to return to our own history and to recover the enduring richness of our own culture, its values, insights and instructive practices and to use it as a constant resource to inform, enrich and expand our lives. Likewise, Kwanzaa reaffirms the centrality of our ancient and ongoing social justice tradition with its stress on struggle and its ethical insistence that we seek and speak truth, do justice, care for the poor and vulnerable, empower the masses of people, practice peace, continuously expand the realm of human freedom and human flourishing and constantly repair and renew the world.

Thus, at Kwanzaa, we are obligated to ask what is the moral meaning of our lives as Africans in the world? What are our moral obligations to ourselves and each other, to the poor and unpowerful, to the ill and aged, to the stranger, the environment and future generations and to the oppressed, suffering and struggling peoples of the world? Regardless of the specific conclusions we come to with regard to these enduring questions, the overarching answer to these and all related ones is found in the ancestral teachings in the Odu Ifa that “humans are divinely chosen to bring good in the world” and that this is the fundamental mission and meaning of human life.

And it is in this process of seeking to create and practice good in the world that we turn to the Nguzo Saba. Indeed, the Nguzo Saba provide us with a cultural value system that calls on us to have the courage to care and think deeply about what’s going on in the world and to enter the field of action with a willingness to work and struggle hard to build the world we all want and deserve to live in.

The Nguzo Saba begin with the principle of Umoja (unity). Our text, Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture, states that the principle Umoja calls on us “to strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race,” i.e., the world African community. Umoja encourages a profound sense of relatedness, togetherness and oneness in the small and larger circles of our lives. It fosters a spirit of togetherness and a moral sensitivity which encourages us to avoid injuring each other and the world and to eagerly work and struggle for the common good.

The second principle, Kujichagulia (self-determination), the text says, is a call “to define ourselves, names ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.” It teaches us to define ourselves by the good we do and the dignity-bearing way we walk in the world, to name ourselves in reverent respect for our history and highest values, to create for ourselves in the life-affirming, world-preserving ways of the ancestors, and to speak for ourselves in ways that bring forth the best of our culture, and reaffirms our ancient and ongoing commitment to bring and share good in the world.

The third principle, Ujima (collective work and responsibility) calls on us, the text says, “to build and maintain our community together and to make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems and to solve them together.” This principle teaches us that we are responsible to and for each other, that we must build the world we want and deserve to live in and that it is a work which requires a profound and persistent ethical sensitivity to the needs and aspirations of others. Thus, the problems of poverty, homelessness, unemployment, crime, early death and racialized justice, the pandemic of HIV/AIDS and the support of its survivors and the care for the families of its victims must not be approached simply as isolated, personalized tragedies and unfortunate problems for others. Rather, they must be understood and engaged as problems which we are all affected by and responsible for solving. Likewise, the sufferings and struggles of the peoples of the world whether in Sudan, Haiti, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Australia, Venezuela, Bolivia, and other parts of the world are our concerns also. For we live in a world and web of interdependence and the issues of freedom, justice, self-determination and peace are critical issues for all of us, everywhere in the world.

The fourth principle, Ujamaa (cooperative economics), the text tells us, urges us “to build and maintain our stores, shops and other business and to profit from them together.” This is a compelling call to practice the principle of shared work and shared wealth in the world. It begins with a call to build and maintain economic institutions and by extension engage in economic practices that address our needs and aspirations and represent the best of our values.

The model which Kwanzaa raises and the Nguzo Saba teaches is the harvest. To harvest good, we plan and then plant the promising fields of our lives and future together. We cultivate them together with loving care; we harvest them together with hope and anticipation of abundance. We joyfully share the good we have created together. And we conscientiously set aside seeds of good for the future.

The fifth principle is Nia (purpose). The text tells us this principle calls on us “to make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.” Here it is important to recognize that in the best of the African ethical tradition, greatness is not measured by material wealth, military might, scientific or technological knowledge, but by the good we do with what we have. Thus, the Husia says “the wise are known by their wisdom but the great are known by their good deeds.” This teaching of the Husia parallels the teaching in the Odu Ifa that says “Let’s do things with joy…for surely humans have been divinely chosen to bring good in the world.” Again, the fundamental mission and meaning of human life is to do good in and for the world. So,let us be exalted by the good we do, the good heaven and history have chosen us to do.

The sixth principle is Kuumba (creativity) which the text tells us calls on us “to do always as much as we can in the way we can in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.” This principle speaks in a larger sense not only to our always striving to make our own community constantly better and more beautiful and beneficial, but also the world. This we do in the spirit of the ancient African concept of serudj ta which means in ancient Egyptian—to repair, restore and renew the world making it more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it. But inherent in this concept is the call to heal ourselves and each other as well as the world. This is the real meaning of reparations. For it is not about receiving monies, but about the larger struggle to achieve justice and the radical repairing we do to ourselves, society and the world in the process of struggle.

Imani (faith) is the seventh principle of the Nguzo Saba. And the text tells us that Imani, the principle of faith, calls on us “to believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory our struggle.” We must then, have faith in our people, in their capacity for and commitment to good in the world; in our parents-fore parents and current ones, and the good they’ve done, do and want for us; in our teachers who teach us the good and inspire us to embrace it; and in our leaders who guide us toward the good and aid us in becoming self-conscious agents of our own life and liberation.

And we must believe in therightfulness and eventual victory of our struggle, believe that we can together end oppression, lessen and eventually eliminate injustice, put an end to the disempowerment of the masses of people, and erase the scourge of war from the world.

Let us go forward then, striving to embody and live the life-affirming values of our ancestors that represent the best of what it means to be African and human in the world. And let us always strive to be a powerful presence for good in the world and constantly work for the good life which every person and people, as bearers of dignity and divinity, demand and deserve. And this Kwanzaa and always, let us wish for all and each of us, a long and good life, blessings without number and all good things without end, in a word, all the good that heaven grants, the earth produces and the waters bring forth from their depths.

Dr. Maulana Karenga is creator of Kwanzaa and the Nguzo Saba; professor in the Department of Black Studies at California State University-Long Beach; chair of The Organization Us and the National Association of Kawaida Organizations (NAKO); and author of the authoritative book on Kwanzaa titled Kwanzaa, A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture. For a full version of this statement, visit: