Re “Kwanzaa Celebration Crests on Saturday in Leimert Park”
In a country as diverse as America, it may be presumed that this final day of the year is intensely unique for other stationary reasons.
For 47 years, Dec. 31 has been the next-to-last day of the weeklong African American cultural festival of Kwanzaa.
[img]2361|right|Ms. Chimbuko Tembo||no_popup[/img]Chimbuko Tembo, associate director of the African American Cultural Center, on 48th Street, just east of Crenshaw Boulevard, has participated in most of the celebrations. The Cultural Center is a book-lined, pin-neat jewel in the middle of an unremarkable neighborhood. Its mission, says Ms. Tembo, “is to preserve and promote the best of African and African American culture, and to use that to expand and improve our lives.”
Like her neighbors of many cultures, she grew up in a family that celebrated Christmas, decked out in its red and white traditions. All of that changed, however, after Ms. Tembo arrived “30-something years ago” on the campus of San Diego State.
“Fellow students brought the concept and practice of Kwanzaa to the school,” she said. “The Black Students Union sponsored a Kwanzaa celebration every year, and that is how I came to the awareness of the holiday.”
Ms. Tembo said that what appealed then and now about Kwanzaa are “the values of the holiday. Kwanzaa is grounded in seven communitarian acts – values that are the same ones that I was taught growing up by my mother and my grandmother.
“I am talking about values that taught us to share with each other, values that taught us to be concerned about the needy.
“We always had to collect things and give them to those who had less than us, even though we were working class and struggling.
“Still,” said Ms. Tembo, “we had to have concern for those who had even less than we did.”
(To be continued tomorrow)
