ABSTRACT
Kwanzaa, a 7-day festival beginning on December 26, was created in 1966, and is one of the most lasting innovations of U.S. Black nationalism of the 1960s. Although it is becoming more popular in Canada, the Caribbean, and elsewhere, Kwanzaa is still chiefly celebrated in the United States. Designed to resemble the ritual at an African harvest festival, Kwanzaa consists of a number of activities, including feasting, lighting candles, recitations, and the giving of small gifts to children. A marketing survey in 1997 estimated that Kwanzaa is celebrated by one out of seven U.S. Blacks.2 Two successive acts of national imprimatur demonstrate the growing acceptance of Kwanzaa. The postal service offered a Kwanzaa stamp in 1997. The same year, President Clinton became the first U.S. president to issue a proclamation sending good wishes to Americans who celebrate Kwanzaa. Kwanzaa is significant both because of its popularity and because it retells the African American story, with the distant African rural past elevated to the point of origin. It is even more significant as a cultural event where African American racial identity is formed and refashioned in the post-civil rights era.
