SLU Celebrates Umoja at Pre-Kwanzaa Feast
12/11/2018
Guided by a spirit of umoja or unity, SLU students, faculty and staff members gathered to honor the kinship between Black American and African cultural traditions at the 2018 Pre-Kwanzaa Celebration in the Center for Global Citizenship.
Dancers from Spirit of Angela spring up in exultation at SLU's Pre-Kwanzaa Celebration.
Kwanzaa, which runs this year from Wednesday, Dec. 26, through Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2019, is a Pan-African and African American holiday that centers on coming together to celebrate African heritage and culture. The holiday highlights seven core principles, the Nguzo Saba: unity, creativity, faith, purpose, self-determination, cooperative economics and collective work and responsibility.
Dancers from the Spirit of Angela West African Dance and Drum, a performing troupe dedicated to preserving the dance and drum cultures of Guinea, the Congo, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, and other West African nations, spun, leapt and twirled in celebration before a display of Kwanzaa symbols including a kinara and mishumaa saba.
Following a welcome by Christopher Tinson, Ph.D., director of SLU’s African American Studies Program, and introductory remarks by Karla Scott, Ph.D., Cindy Reed, a doctoral student in the Department of American Studies read a poem calling those in the C.S. Huesh Auditorium to embrace their beauty and Blackness.
Leonard McKinnis, Ph.D., of the Department of Theological Studies, explained the spiritual dimensions of Kwanzaa and its traditions. He then led the crowd in a ritual Calling of the Names of Ancestors and libation offering. The crowd called out names from SLU faculty member Norm White, Ph.D., to activist and poet laureate Maya Angelou. Richard Marks, interim director of SLU’s Cross Cultural Center, thanked the crowd for gathering.
The event, held Tuesday, Dec. 11, was sponsored by the Cross Cultural Center, Society of African American Studies and African American Studies Program. SLU staff members and alumni including Andre Craig, Dana Guyton and Laurence Washington helped to organize and staff the event.
Story and photos by Amelia Flood, University Marketing and Communications