Seventy-year-old musician Tony Toneji Garrett grew up in a time before Kwanzaa came into existence. 

He said his family instead celebrated what they called “Little Christmas,” where they exchanged small gifts to celebrate each other and their community. 

Garrett added that he always wanted a “form of self-identity” for the African American community but never found one. 

“I always thought, what do we have that we can call our own?” Garrett said. 

This holiday season, Garrett will be facilitating a drum circle at Evanston’s Kwanzaa celebration, co-hosted by the city and the Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre. The event is on Dec. 26 at 6 p.m. at the Robert Crown Community Center.

Activist Maulana Karenga created Kwanzaa, a name derived from the Swahili phrase “matunda ya kwanza,” meaning “first fruits of the harvest,” in 1966. The holiday was established in response to the Watts riots, which protested racist policing practices and segregation in Los Angeles.

The holiday is now celebrated annually from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1.

Evanston’s yearly Kwanzaa celebration has been led by Tim Rhoze, Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre’s producing artistic director, for over a decade.

This year’s celebration “A Legacy Kwanzaa!” aims to honor the contributions of Evanston’s Black community, Rhoze wrote in an email to The Daily.

For Garrett, the “legacy” of Kwanzaa lies in how widely the celebration and its guiding principles have spread to various communities. 

“Each one of the principles has a purpose for people to recognize and to gather around and realize there are certain things that maybe have been neglected in certain communities in the past, but now they’re starting to come to fruition,” he said. 

Each day of the celebration has a corresponding principle, which revolves around building community and a sense of individual purpose.

“Umoja,” which means unity in Swahili, is the principle for Dec. 26, the first day of the holiday. Rhoze said he wants attendees to feel this sense of togetherness at the city’s Kwanzaa celebration, held the same day.

“I want our community to leave the celebration embracing the power of family and community unity, striving together to lift each other up,” he wrote. 

Along with Garrett’s drum circle, the event will feature various dance performances, including from NAJWA Dance Corps, and an arts and crafts table for families.

Evanston Public Library is leading the crafts table and will have bracelet making with beads matching the colors of Kwanzaa — red, black and green — according to Carmen Francellno, EPL’s family engagement coordinator.

She added that a successful project she hopes to bring back this year is paper kinaras. It allows children to learn where each of the seven Kwanzaa candles is placed in the candle holder, she said.

Francellno emphasized that although there are few Kwanzaa arts and crafts ideas online, having activities for the entire family to do together is an important aspect of the celebration.

“Kwanzaa itself is a family-based and community-based holiday,” she said. “I think it makes perfect sense to do something that brings the whole family in.”

She said she hopes some of these crafts will become family traditions that are passed down to future generations. 

For his drum circle, Garrett said he wants to bring the community together and create a sense of self-awareness, both of which are present in Kwanzaa values. 

He added that he is excited to continue sharing these values as the celebration of Kwanzaa continues to grow. 

“To know that this is something that is relatively new, but this is something that (is about) self-identification, that is something to be proud of,” Garrett said. “I’m glad that the legacy is continuing on for it to grow even more so that 20 years from now, it can be even bigger, maybe even a national holiday.”

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