The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa

THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF KWANZAA CHALLENGE US TO ACT WITH:

  • 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 brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems and 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.