Kwanzaa

In the midst of chaos there was a moment of beauty. Kwanzaa at Amherst College was a moment for me with so much beauty and so many motivational messages. One high light was they guys drumming for the event. Khalila couldn't resist being with her brothers so she took a seat next to Z and started shaking her stick, on cue. Thank you to the community at Amherst College and especially Dean Moss for putting together such an amazing Kwanzaa. I laughed, I cried, I got outraged, I got inspired, I got connected. Lift every voice and sing...





Here is another shot of the guys drumming for Ms. Marilyn and extraordinary dancer.

Here are the seven principles of Kwanzaa


NGUZO SABA(The Seven Principles)

Umoja (Unity)To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.

Kujichagulia (Self-Determination)To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.

Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility)To build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and sister's problems our problems and to solve them together.

Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics)To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.

Nia (Purpose)To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

Kuumba (Creativity)To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

Imani (Faith)To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

­ Maulana Karenga



Khalila came through a challenging birth, in some ways, and although we were close to a c-section she was determined to be birthed through the canal. We were thinking about making her middle name Kuji for her self-determination but there is already one Kuji in Amherst so we went for Imani, faith. Also giving her the middle initial i creates khalila and her name is a combination of my initials hal, and her initials kila.