Seven-day festival of Kwanzaa begins

Kwanzaa, the secular holiday honoring African-American culture and history, kicks off on Monday, and for Joysetta Pearse it will be a time to reflect on her life's direction and meaning.

The festival, created by a California black studies professor in 1966, "has value in that it draws our attention to the attitude, the intention of our lives," said Pearse, a genealogist at the African-American Museum of Nassau County in Hempstead. "It gives us a chance to focus on all the good things you should be doing."

Every year, the start of Kwanzaa -- named after a Swahili phrase for "first fruits" -- falls on the first day after Christmas, though it has no formal connection to it.

The celebrations, often held at libraries, communities and churches, are marked by singing, dancing, storytelling, drumming, poetry and, of course, food -- everything from fried and barbecue treats to Cajun or West Indian dishes.

It goes on for seven days, though the first is often the biggest. The holiday employs the Swahili language and Pan-African symbolism to emphasize a theme for each day: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.

It's a time "to come together, to give thanks for all we've been able to accomplish during the year," said Darcel Wilamowski, coordinator of the Ministry to Catholics of African Ancestry for the Diocese of Rockville Centre. "It's community. It's neighborhood."

The celebration also includes the lighting of black, red and green candles -- the Pan-African colors representing the people of African ancestry -- and the ritual pouring of a libation into a "unity cup."

Wilamowski said she found the celebration especially helpful as preparation for the Martin Luther King Day on the third Monday in January and Black History Month in February. She often thinks back to African-American leaders such as Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, who helped pave the way for King and other modern-day civil rights leaders.

Noting that one theme of Kwanzaa is faith, she said, "Black folks without faith could never have made it through slavery. It's a story of hope."