Kwanzaa Seventh Day

 

Happy seventh day of Kwanzaa - IMANI (FAITH)

Excerpts from https://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org 

The Seven Principles, the Nguzo Saba, offer us an African value system that provides morally grounded guidance for our lives and living. They serve as a mirror and measure of our living up to our highest and most beneficial values.

by DR. MAULANA KARENGA

THE SEVENTH PRINCIPLE, IMANI (FAITH), teaches us to believe in the good and our capacity to achieve it, share it, and leave it as a worthy legacy for those who come afterward. Let us have faith, then, in the sacred teachings of our ancestors which say to us across millennia: “Let’s do things with joy for surely humans have been divinely chosen to bring good in the world” and this is the fundamental mission and meaning of human life. Thus, chosen by history and heaven to constantly strive to bring good in the world, we must audaciously and ceaselessly dare to do so. So, let’s continue the struggle. Keep the faith. Hold the line. Love and respect our people and each other. Seek and speak truth. Do and demand justice. Be constantly concerned with the well-being of the world and all in it. And dare help rebuild the overarching movement that pre-figures and makes possible the good world we all want and deserve to live in and leave as a legacy worthy of the name and history African.

This series is being published as support of the Black Lives Matter movement. African Americans may or may not celebrate this holiday, which was devised in their honor. I find it a most inspiring series of thoughtful principles - one for each of seven days.

DR. MAULANA KARENGA, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, California State University- Long Beach; Executive Director, African American Cultural Center (Us); Creator of Kwanzaa; and author of Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture and Essays on Struggle: Position and Analysis, www.OfficialKwanzaaWebsite.org; www.MaulanaKarenga.org,www.AfricanAmericanCulturalCenter-LA.org; www.Us-Organization.org.