The Nairobi Kwanzaa Committee presents: Kujichagulia --Self Determination, December 27 drafty

I always enjoy Kwanzaa. I love the Bay Area Kwanzaa Committee programs better than all the rest for the spirit and authenticity of these gatherings. There, I see the Pan Africans, the Garveyites, the New Afrikan folks—people whose children attended Independent Black Schools, children of the ‘60s who believed in the idea of an African nation connected once again theoretically across borders—the lines once again erased.

You’ll see many photos of my good sister Makinyah Kouate because she is the one responsible, singlehandedly in teaching everyone how to conduct the community Kwanzaa. I hear she got a car and traveled throughout the country, first the western region and then further east and spread taught the Afrikan nation how to perform the ceremony.

As I sat next to her last night in Nairobi and the young woman began to light the candles, assisted by children from the audience, Sister Makinyah asked me if she started with the red candle and I told her yes. She said initially, before Maulana Ron Karenga invited white people into the ceremony, the candles reflected the Black Nationalist flag: red, black, green, black in the center, the red, black, green. I was like wow! I didn’t know this, as this Kwanzaa is the only one I’ve ever attended where there is so much black in the kinara or candle holder—I liked the idea of the green candle at the end and the red at the beginning-out of stuggle or labor comes fruit or measureable results: the green candle or harvest. The fact that there is more than one black candle adds a lot to the image which is more powerful and more African.

When Khabral asked the question, “Why is Kwanzaa important? Why should it continue? What is its significance?” Avotcja said Kwanzaa was important because of him. The independent black school graduates who almost outnumbered those in the audience. I was with people who’d never attended Kwanzaa before in Nairobi and this was their first one. I’d never attended before last year, and I did last year because Baba Eddie Abrams asked me to document the event for his television show. Someone else did the documenting, but I was so happy to attend such a joyous celebration of African heritage. There was a live jazz band, The Wobogo Jazz Ensemble, featuring one of my friends, drummer, Brother Achytan and his wife Barbara, whom I hadn’t seen in years. I wanted to make it last night, Kujichagulia, because it was the last place I saw Brother Imam Benjamin Ahmad before he was killed a few months ago. It was like a pilgrimage. I wanted to hear his name called and Sister Tiombe shared stories of how he encouraged the children who didn’t have men in their lives to achieve greatness. I also had an opportunity to spend some time with a Sister HuNia whom I knew from the community, but didn’t really know. She used to host as community Kwanzaa at deFermery Park. This year the Oakland Parks and Recreation Centers are closed, along with the libraries so she won’t be hosting anything this year.

I was thinking about all the former Kwanzaa houses where initially, during those early years, the gatherings grew from just s handful of friends and family to hundreds of people, too many to contain in a small room. The first Kwanzaa in Los Angeles in 1967 was just for United Slave members, Maulana Ron Karenga’s organization. The next year, 1968 the broader community was invited to participate in the first Kwanzaa’s which were in people’s homes. Avoctja interrupted the gathering to tell people how important Sister Makinyah was to us, that without her, we wouldn’t know how to practice Kwanzaa, that she is the reason why it is a global celebration of the harvest and principles which if followed, give direction and purpose of our lives.

We were a part of a retreat last year with a Zimbabwean healer, Mandanza at Wo’se House of Amen Ra to establish a Dare for African people. But since the retreat and one follow-up conversation, we haven’t met, so it was an opportunity to reconnect with at least one member of the assembly.

Kwanzaa held for me the promise of a better tomorrow regardless of the current instability and the crisis. There is hope on the horizon, but nothing will happen if we don’t grab each other, pull each other close and tell each other: “I love you.”

This was the message last night of so many from Achytan, the elder man in the assembly at 75 years old, Sister Makinyah, the elder in the house at 82, Avotcja the elder woman last night, and the speaker for the evening, Pastor Andre Harris. Both Avotcja and Achytan, drank from the unity cup held by Sister Makinyah, for all assembled as they accepted the principle Kujichaguila.

I attended an independent black school, Muhammad University, so did my brother, yet I am never invited to participate in anything celebrating our academic autonomy. I might not know the Afrikan Liberation Pledge, but its principles, similar to those practiced in the Kwanzaa ceremony, and there after for 52 days each, with one day left over for a meditation on the experience, were ones we based our lived on as members of the Nation of Islam then. Our principles were freedom, justice and equality for the Black Nation. We had sustainable communities. I knew black doctors, and grocers. We had restaurants and farms where we grew our own food. We had our own schools and black teachers. We were encouraged to study and share our knowledge with each other. I banked at a black bank and though not perfect, I didn’t always get paid on time, I enjoyed being a member of the community and felt comfortable and safe and loved, at least between the years of 10 and 16 and after 16, I figured the one bad apple didn’t need to spoil the entire barrel so I separated the person from the principles of faith he obviously didn’t believe in or practice. And decided to protect my children, if and when I had any, so that they would not experience what I’d experienced with any clergy or any other men in authority in or outside our community. I was like the secret service, present, yet invisible—I asked the ancestors and other angels to look out for them and to my knowledge they did.

But back to Kujichagulia or Self-Determination, I became fascinated by it once I could pronounce it and I saw it manifested in my sister Phavia Kujichagulia’s person. I love the way she wears Kujichaguila. I also like the way Geronimo ji jaga implements it in his Kuji Foundation, an organization based on its principles, the first or the action which brought the organization to my attention, his putting in a well in Arusha, Tanzania. I thought this was really honorable and so necessary so the women wouldn’t have to travel for hours to get clean water. There is so much those of us who have clean water just a slight wrist movement away, take for granted. Visit http://www.kujifoundation.org/

There is no site for Ujima or Collective Work and Responsibility today for the Community Kwanzaas. This would have been a great segue into an action plan. Okay, if we are having a crisis among our youth as Baba Greg and Pastor Andre pointed out, this also pointed out a year ago, then what do we do about it? What action do we take today for the next 12 months which we can report on the following Ujima, Ujima 2009?

With the passing of our beloved sister, C. Diane Howell, it is evident none of us will be here forever and none, so we need to find our bliss and do what we love. We are supposed to be happy and like the corn which represents the children, each seed representative of the generations to come—happiness is not only contagious, it reproduces—one smile generating another and another.

Pastor Andre’s father reminded me of mine, only he wouldn’t throw the unmade bed out the house onto the lawn, but he would break all the dishes in the sink if they weren’t washed when he came home. We washed walls all the way to the baseboards on the weekends, swept and dusted all the places company never saw, but my dad knew collected dust or grime. He wasn’t military, like Andre’s dad, but he was military because in the Nation of Islam we were military. We had captains and lieutenants and vanguards. I was a vanguard.

I am just rambling; I guess that’s what one does at the end of a cycle. I am going home once again this year, twice in six months, to bring in the New Year and to also see Prospect 1, the largest art exhibit in the country’s history. I will be returning in time to see my sisters in Chowchilla, the women’s prison there. I was there last year on the outside protesting the poor medical treatment, the crazy policies regarding tasers—the women routinely shocked for the slightest infractions, not to mention the instances of sexual harassment and abuse many women suffer from the male prison guards. What’s going on in the prisons is a Maafa or Black Holocaust of tremendous proportion and if we are not alarmed and ever vigilant it could be us locked up next. The prison industrial complex is not concerned about justice or what is right, it is the new Jim Crow and it’s all about cheap labor and expendable populations. “Work ‘em to death and then get some more.” Read Douglas Blackmon’s book, “Slavery by Another Name.” He writes about the reenslavement of Africans post-emancipation up to World War II. This neo-slavery movement is post-1968 to now. Never before have so many men and women been locked behind bars for sentences so long, they will never serve the minimal. Look at MOVE members serving 99-100+ years for “nothing.”

This year, instead of rallying outside across the road where barbed wire separated us from he women in the yard, I will be inside visiting with sisters, black women who don’t get many visits. Women don’t get many visits at all. They are the caretakers, so when they are locked up, who takes care of them? Who takes care of their children who are often lost to the foster care and then adoption system too easily.

I am returning from New Orleans early to visit with the women. I was told the date was January 7, and then it changed. So I have to prerecord my radio show. Make sure you tune in Friday, January 9, 2009, 8-10 a.m. PST, at http://www.wandaspicks.asmnet.org I plan to feature Ida McCray and her daughter, Nia, who will talk about the toll it takes on a family when the mother is incarcerated. Ida McCray is the founder and director of Families with a Future and her daughter, Nia works for the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, an organization I am a board member of. Visit http://womenprisoners.org/ or call (415) 255-7036 ext. 4, write California Coalition for Women Prisoners, 1540 Market St., Suite 490, San Francisco, CA 94102 and info@womenprisoners.org.