Utahns mark 40 years of Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa is 40 years old this year — a definite milestone for a holiday invented from scratch. It's now such a fixture on American calendars that there are middle-aged adults who can't remember a time when the holiday didn't exist.

Simone Fritz has been celebrating Kwanzaa since she was a little girl in California, where the holiday was dreamed up by a college professor to help African-Americans learn about traditional African values. On Wednesday, Fritz joined other Utahns to celebrate the holiday at the University of Utah's Museum of Fine Arts.

The event included dance, drumming and an explanation of the meaning of Kwanzaa by veteran Utah storyteller Sister Maryam.

"Come a little closer — we're family," Sister Maryam told the audience gathered in the museum's auditorium. The audience included Africans like Amadou Niang of Mali and Americans like Charise Cooley of Salt Lake City, who was celebrating Kwanzaa for the first time. Cooley had brought along her three children so they could "learn a different culture."

The audience also included moms like Susan Wrathall of Salt Lake City, who has adopted two African-American daughters. Wrathall is a member of a group called Utah Trans-racial Adoptions, started by Kristin Richardson of Rose Park. This is the first year both mothers have celebrated Kwanzaa.

The holiday was started by California State University black studies professor Maulana Ron Karenga in 1966, at a time when black Americans "realized we were losing our identity. We tried to fit in to other people's cultures," Sister Maryam explained.

Karenga's solution was a seven-day holiday that not only helped black Americans focus on their African roots but celebrated the principles central to African communal life: unity, self-determination, working together, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.

Earlier in the afternoon, in the museum's Great Hall, Tri Taylor and his wife Lakissha, gave thanks to the "ancestors and elders who paved the way," and lit a candle for each Kwanzaa principle.

Self-determination, Lakissha explained, "means 'I will do it. I will get it done. I will be somebody. I am somebody."' As for the fourth principle, cooperative economics, "In Utah that means 'support black-owned businesses,"' she said.

Tri Taylor first learned about Kwanzaa as a fifth-grader in Maryland but only began celebrating it six years ago. Now, he says, "I want to practice the principles of Kwanzaa every single day of the year."

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