Kwanzaa symbols make up the “Kwanzaa Set” and are essential to the Kwanzaa celebration. Kwanzaa symbols reinforce the values, concepts and themes of the Kwanzaa holiday. The symbols also are instructive, furnishing lessons and narratives which can serve as powerful illustrations in support of an enriched social, moral and intellectual development. Symbol Five: Unity...
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One of the most meaningful activities of Kwanzaa is the daily ingathering activity. Based on the celebrations in traditional African societies, often referred to as the first fruits celebrations in which families and the larger community would come together to celebrate the harvest, the common good, and the coming of a new year, Kwanzaa...
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Central and essential to the restoration and revitalization of black and poor neighborhoods is establishment of community standards or norms. Community norms set the standard of right and wrong behavior. The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa are well-suited to serve as community standards for African American neighborhoods. What is important here and can not be...
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Root and Branch: Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, and the Struggle to End Segregation Author: Rawn James The Supreme Court 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education is widely considered one of the milestones of the civil rights movement. James Rawn explores the two men, Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall, and the...
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Unquestionably the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States was a milestone in the history of African Americans. Many saw his election as the capstone of an emerging era of enduring progress and achievement by blacks in America. Yet, the untold story of African American children in the foster...
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The current state of black male and female relationships demands attention and correction: declining marriage rates, increasing rates of single black women with children (single mothers with kids accounted for 22 percent of all black households) 70 percent of all African-American births are out of wedlock, nearly 45 percent of Black men have never...
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Come home from the movies black girls and boys the picture be over and the screen/ be cold as our neighborhood come home from the show/ don’t be the show come home from the movies/ black girls and boys show our fathers how to walk like men/ they already know how do dance -Lucille...
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Michelle and I send warm wishes to all those celebrating Kwanzaa this holiday season. This is a joyous time of year when African Americans and all Americans come together to celebrate our blessings and the richness of our cultural traditions. This is also a time of reflection and renewal as we come to the...
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The current debate over educational excellence, characterized by President Obama’s Race to the Top, overlooks one of the most inspiring and compelling models of teaching and African American educational excellence-Dunbar High School, located in Washington D.C. What is now called a typical “ghetto” school was once the pride of the race, out performing in...
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The election of Barack Obama has obscured the tragic and ugly side of what is happening in poor and working African America neighborhoods, especially to young black men. As Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow points out, “today an astounding percentage of the African American community is warehoused in prisons or trapped...
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