Lake City Kwanzaa celebration commemorates community, heritage and culture

A simple wooden kinara, complete with three red, three green and a single black candle, sat on a table surrounded by various items cultural items and fresh fruits representing African idealism. The objects were gathered as community members added individual contributions Thursday to celebrate Kwanzaa at Wesley Chapel United Methodist Church in Lake City.

Kwanzaa is a week-long celebration of African American heritage and culture that begins December 26 and ends January 1. The holiday was established by Maulana Karenga and celebrated first at the end of 1966 and has since spread throughout the United States.

Mamie Elmore first started celebrating Kwanzaa in the late 1970s and introduced the holiday to Lake City community in 1987.

Elmore said that over the years, the annual celebration has been held in various locations in Lake City including Greater St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church, community centers and private homes.

“This year we wanted it to be a community event,” said Elmore. Elmore, in conjunction with Smoke Free Florence Initiative, assisted in coordinating this year’s celebration.

“It is a good time for all the churches to come together in a coordinated effort with the Smoke Free Initiative,” said Elmore.

Kwanzaa celebrations include music, songs, and reflections on African American culture and heritage.

Elmore said the music and songs are how the community members remember their ancestry and serve as reminders “that we need to remain unified as a family,” said Elmore.

Doretha Copper said she has celebrated Kwanzaa on and off for more than 15 years and that the holiday serves “to help our kids get a taste of our heritage along with Christmas.”

The evening’s program included reflections by a man, a woman and a child. As part of the reflections, Olanta native, Helen McClam Johnson, performed a skit recalling her childhood in the area and the days of hand picking cotton bolls in the fields.

Johnson, 78, spoke and sang about picking cotton as a girl and charged community members to remember their heritage as they celebrate the seven days of Kwanzaa.

Johnson, wove song and speech together to tell her story as she picked bolls of cotton from stems adorning the stage and her lyrics tasked the audience celebrating Kwanzaa to “don’t you ever forget where the Lord brought you from.”

Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa are associated with specific principles and are represented by the seven candles in the kinara.

The principles together comprise Kawaida, a Swahili word meaning tradition and reason, and are:

Umoja - unity

Kujichagulia – self-determination

Ujima – collective work and responsibility

Ujamaa – cooperative economics

Nia – Purpose

Kuumba – creativity

Imani - faith