With Kwanzaa comes a celebration of the harvest
19.05.12
"A lot of people know about The Haggin ... but The Haggin (shares items from) the history of agriculture in the United States, really the world. A lot of the essential tools ... were created in the Stockton region," said Michael Harris, state director of the Black Farmers in Agriculture Association. "So we want people to experience that, see it in context, and we know (from) the museum there were people of African descent who were here before Stockton was even a town."
Kwanzaa was created in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga in the aftermath of the Watts uprising in Los Angeles. He was "looking for something positive to give the community, to ground themselves in who they were as a people," Harris said.
There are seven principles of Kwanzaa, but they don't need to be associated solely with the holiday, Harris said.
"The principles are part of a living social practice, something that you should do and could do throughout your life, ... no matter who you are, no matter what age, no matter what ethnicity. It has a unique expression with the African experience in America," he said.
Source: Stockton Record