OGDEN — Kwanzaa has been a part of the lives of Betty Sawyer and her family for more than 30 years.
The seven key principles at the center of Kwanzaa, including unity and self-determination, “are something that we wanted to make sure that we were passing on to our children and that next generation,” she said. “All of these things were values that really resonated with us as a young family and something that we wanted to make sure that our children were a part of.”
She hasn’t kept the celebration, focused on African American culture, confined to her family, though. For more than 25 years, Sawyer has helped organize public Kwanzaa events, and Project Success Coalition, which she leads, is hosting a Kwanzaa celebration on Sunday, Dec. 29, at Second Baptist Church, 227 27th Street in Ogden. One of the few public Kwanzaa events in the state, it goes from 3-5 p.m., and the public is invited.
Though coming during the Hanukkah and Christmas seasons, Kwanzaa is a cultural celebration, not a religious event, said Sawyer, who also heads the Ogden branch of the NAACP. It’s celebrated over a seven-day span, Dec. 26 through Jan. 1, and was created in 1966 by Ron Karenga in the aftermath of rioting in Oakland, California, a year earlier.
“Kwanzaa is a time for families and communities to come together to remember the past and to celebrate African American culture,” according to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. In creating Kwanzaa, Karenga, active in the Black Power movement of the 1960s, said he aimed to “give Blacks an opportunity to celebrate themselves and their history,” according to the museum.
While rooted in honoring African culture in the United States, all are welcome to Sunday’s Kwanzaa event and Sawyer thinks the principles of the celebration are universal. The seven underlying principles of Kwanza are unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.
“People are promoting hate and disunity and Kwanzaa is something that brings us together to promote unity and community ties and foster that sense of unity and oneness that we have as people on this earth,” Sawyer said.
Three rotating workshops are planned as part of Sunday’s Kwanzaa activities. They focus on storytelling, African dance and drum and a craft.
Past Kwanzaa events Sawyer has helped organize have drawn people from a range of faiths and backgrounds. Project Success Coalition, the organizing entity behind next Sunday’s activities, serves the African American community of Utah and aims to promote community engagement.
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