COLUMBIA – Columbia Parks and Recreation hosted its annual Kwanzaa celebration Saturday at the Armory Sports Center downtown.
The celebration was free and open to anyone, and included performances, food and refreshments, as well as a business expo featuring local Black-owned businesses.
Kwanzaa is an African American and Pan-African holiday founded in 1966 in the U.S. The holiday features a cultural message that “speaks to the best of what it means to be African and human in the fullest sense,” according to the official Kwanzaa website.
Each year, the Columbia event includes its Black-Owned Business Expo, which features several local Black-owned businesses and vendors.
The seven principles of Kwanzaa, according to its official website, are unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. The business expo focuses on the principle of cooperative economics.
“We thought it was a great way to incorporate that principle by getting a bunch of Black-owned local businesses out and having the community come and support them,” said Jay Bradley, recreation specialist with Columbia Parks and Recreation.
Chandra Prince has been doing hair for 33 years, and runs a local business making hair and body products. Her business, The Hair Bar, opened in 2022.
“I started making my own hair and body products, called Chandra’s Hair and Body Love, because we didn’t have too many products for ourselves,” Prince said. “So, I just started making it up and they sell pretty good. It’s all about healthy hair and healthy skin, and I came down here today so I can try to push my products to different types of people. I don’t really celebrate Kwanzaa, but I like to meet all types of different people. And hopefully, I can, you know, introduce them to my products or my services that I provide.”
Kunama Mtendaji, a cultural artist, has been practicing the holiday since the early 1970s. He led an interactive presentation and performance during Saturday’s celebration.
Mtendaji said Kwanzaa is a non-religious holiday by design, in order to include all faiths and backgrounds.
“Whether you are Christian, whether you are Muslim, whether you are Buddhist, whatever your belief system is, as long as you believe in harmony, balance and peace, that you can participate,” Mtendaji said. “It is open to all faiths.”
Kwanzaa will begin on Dec. 26 and will continue until Jan. 1.