Campus Celebrates Individuals' Gifts with Kwanzaa

The College's Kwanzaa holiday celebration is focused on gifts, but not the kind you find at Toys "R" Us. "The emphasis is on the gifts each of us possesses as beings on this planet Earth," says Erika Purnell '99. "Kwanzaa has been celebrated to do away with the material and superficial value society has placed on Christmas. We will celebrate the Earth, motherhood, and our unique and fascinating ties to each other as human beings."

Celebrated by African Americans since 1966, Kwanzaa festivities center around seven principles, one for each day of Kwanzaa: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith. Though traditionally observed December 26-31, Mount Holyoke's celebration will be held December 7.

Association of Pan-African Unity's Kwanzaa coordinator Markeisha Miner '99 says events will begin at 6:30 pm in Blanchard Campus Center, and are open to the entire campus community. Each principle of Kwanzaa will be read, followed by a poem, song, dance, or other cultural expression relating to that principle. A libation honoring ancestors will be offered, and participants will sing the black national anthem, "Lift Every Voice and Sing."

A semiformal dance--billed as "An Evening to Exhale,"--will follow at 9 pm in Blanchard. The event will include music by the female R&B group THIK and DJ Juan from Hampshire College, a dance performance by Ginger Brooks '00 of Shades of Expression, and presentations to campus "women of excellence," according to Miner.