“It’s colorful, it’s festive and some parts are solemn as we take on a reflective tone and (pay) a tribute to our ancestors,” explained Sue Johnson about Kwanzaa celebrations.
Nia Cultural Center will be honoring Kwanzaa with a public celebration on December 30 at Old Central Cultural Center, 2627 Ave. M in Galveston from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
Guests of honor will include the reigning Miss Juneteenth Texas, Madison Swain and Little Miss and Mister Juneteenth Galveston County. The guest speaker will be the Reverend Eugene Lewis. Barbra J McIlveen and Jessie Curtis, serving as elders, will be in attendance. The Village Keepers elected for this year’s celebration are Kimble Anders, Earl Alexander, Honi Alexander, Elodie Eli, Josh Miller, Kiandra Nance, and Alex Thomas.
The events will begin with vendors selling items provided by Black-owned businesses. Then the evening will continue with the solemn and festive ceremony. A drum call will signal the Village Keepers to enter the ceremonial area and take their seats.
From there, the ceremony commences with dances and chants that are affirmations and encouragements, according to Johnson. Young people will light six of the Kinara candles.
Within the ceremony is a time when guests are invited to call out names of their African ancestors. The names they call could be well-known individuals or they could be someone’s grandpa or auntie who has passed on.
This year there will be young people in period costumes acting out the roles of some of Galveston’s Black historic figures: Jack Johnson, Jessie McGuire Dent, Jewl Banks, and one non Galvestonian but a well-known Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson
Celebrating Kwanzaa has personal meaning for Galvestonian Sue Johnson, who is the founder and executive director of the Nia Cultural Center in Galveston.
About the time she was in her early 20s she wandered up I-45 to attend a Kwanzaa celebration at the Shape Community Center in Houston. It was at her first Kwanzaa ceremony that Johnson found an uplifting experience celebrating her African heritage.
“As a young person, growing up in a segregated community with dark skin and curly hair this caused me to feel inferior. It wasn’t until I went to my first Kwanzaa ceremony that I met people who were proud to be Black,” Johnson shared. “It was just, like, ‘wow’; I couldn’t believe how boldly people were speaking about being Black.”
Through her first Kwanzaa celebration, Johnson began to grasp what it meant to be of African descent and the seed was planted for her future establishment of The Nia Cultural Center and yearly celebrations of Kwanzaa in Galveston.
“Celebrating Kwanzaa has become a mechanism and opportunity to affirm being black,” explained Johnson.
Kwanzaa is a relatively youthful celebration when you measure it against most other traditions. In the 57 years since its inception, it has grown to be celebrated by people of African descent in multiple countries.
The celebration was given its first Presidential honor in 1997 by President Bill Clinton. Since then, Presidents George Bush, Barak Obama, Donald J. Trump and Joe Biden have each issued a Kwanzaa greeting.
The United States Postal System issued the first Kwanzaa stamp in 1997. All together there have been 13 USPS Kwanzaa stamps.
The week-long celebration honors African heritage and culture beginning on December 26 going through January 1st. Families are encouraged to celebrate in their homes and come together as a community for one night of the celebration.
