The 49th edition of what organizers say is the world’s oldest Kwanzaa parade will be held in South Los Angeles Friday to mark the start of the seven-day African-American festival.
The Kwanzaa Gwaride is set to begin at 11 a.m. at Adams and Crenshaw boulevards, then head south on Crenshaw Boulevard for two miles to Leimert Park, where a festival will run from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The festival will include live entertainment, cultural activities, vendors and what organizers call “community-centered offerings.”
A marketplace and bazaar celebrating the Kwanzaa principle of collective economics will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the A C Bilbrew Library in Willowbrook.
Attendees will have the opportunity to network with entrepreneurs and exhibitors who will provide a range of products and services from South Los Angeles communities and beyond. The event will also include a special Kwanzaa presentation and information on cultural foods and preserving your legacy through art.
Pasadena’s 37th annual Kwanzaa celebration will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday at the La Pintoresca Branch Library and include music, storytelling and youth presentations. Scheduled guests include Brother Yusef, billed as “The king of organic deep fried fattback blues.”
The Pasadena Alumnae Chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority will provide children’s books and refreshments.
The Lula Washington Dance Theatre in Baldwin Hills’ 45th anniversary Kwanzaa Celebration will conclude at 6 p.m. Monday. The celebration performed by the theatre’s international touring company and youth dancers mixes African dance, modern dance, cultural dance forms and ballet to illuminate the seven principals of Kwanzaa.
Tickets are $49.87, $38.19 for students and seniors 65 and older and $17.85 for children 12 and younger.
Sunday’s performance is sold out.
Kwanzaa’s focus is the “Nguzo Saba,” the Seven Principles, all of which derive from Swahili words. Each night is dedicated to one of the principles, beginning with Umoja — unity, expressing the goal of striving for and maintaining unity in the family and community.
The principle for the second night is Kujichagulia, self-determination, “to define and name ourselves, as well as to create and speak for ourselves.”
The principle for the third night is Ujima, collective work and responsibility.
The other principles are Ujamaa (cooperative economics), Nia (purpose), Kuumba (creativity) and Imani (faith).
During the week, a candelabrum called a Kinara is lit, and ears of corn representing each child in the family are placed on a traditional straw mat.
African foods such as millet, spiced pepper balls and rice are often served. Some people fast during the holiday and a feast is often held on its final night.
A flag with three bars — red for the struggle for freedom, black for unity and green for the future — are sometimes displayed during the holiday.
Kwanzaa is based on the theory of Kawaida, which espouses that social revolutionary change for Black America can be achieved by exposing Blacks to their cultural heritage.
Kwanzaa was created in 1966 Maulana Karenga in what he called “an audacious act of self-determination.”
“Kwanzaa was conceived and born in the womb, work and transformative struggles of the Black Freedom Movement,” Karenga wrote in the 2023 founder’s message. “And thus, its essential message and meaning was shaped and shared not only in sankofa initiatives of cultural retrieval, of the best of our views, values and practices as African peoples.
“It was also shaped by that defining decade of fierce strivings and struggles for freedom, justice and associated goods waged by Africans and other peoples of color all over the world in the 1960s. Kwanzaa thus came into being, grounded itself and grew as an act of freedom, an instrument of freedom, a celebration of freedom and a practice of freedom.”
Karenga announced his retirement last month as chair of the Africana Studies Department at Cal State Long Beach.
Kwanzaa’s 2025 theme is “Practicing the Seven Principles in Dimly-Lit Times: Lifting Up the Light, Hurrying the Dawn,” Karenga announced in his annual founder’s message.
“To speak of dimly-lit times is to talk of the thick fog of falsehood, fear, chaos, confusion and uncertainty that has emerged in this historical moment and settled heavily over the land,” Karenga said.
“Indeed, it is to speak of the rise of authoritarian and anti-democratic governments and practices, and increased levels of mean-spiritedness, human alienation from others and official and unofficial violence of varied kinds, including live-streamed genocide.
“And it is to speak too of the dimming of the light and life of the heart and mind. That is to say, the cultivation of the narrow and uncritical mind and the constricted heart which embrace illusions as real life and have a diminished capacity to fight through the fog, to rightfully reason and consciously demonstrate moral sensitivity for others, especially those different and vulnerable.”