Nyumburu’s 59th Annual Pre-Kwanzaa Celebration Highlights Black Heritage
The University of Maryland’s Nyumburu Cultural Center, which funds The Black Explosion, hosted its annual Pre-Kwanzaa Celebration and Dinner on Dec. 3, reinforcing the holiday’s themes of Black cultural pride and community.
The Nyumburu multipurpose room contained tables draped in red, black and green, a Christmas tree and presents arranged on one side of the stage and African drums arranged carefully on the other. As guests trickled in and the crowd grew the Nyumburu Jazz Club began tuning up.
Interim Director Psyche Williams-Forson opened the program by informing the audience of Kwanzaa’s origins.
Created in 1966 by Maulana Karenga, the holiday centers around seven principles known as the Nguzo Saba. Williams-Forson encouraged students to carry these values — unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith — through the remainder of the semester. The holiday is celebrated from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1 every year.
“Harambee,” she called out, emphasizing the Swahili term meaning “let’s pull together.” She weaved the seven principles into her words of encouragement to the students.
The Maryland Gospel Choir followed with two verses of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” written by James Weldon Johnson, prompting the crowd to sway and sing along.
Brother Joseph Ngwa, a longtime participant in Nyumburu’s cultural programming, stepped forward, adorned in Kwanzaa colors and carrying a drum. He circled the room, urging the audience to clap to the beat.
“You are the future,” Ngwa said. “The future belongs to you, and to know the future you must know your history and where you came from.”
Ngwa, who celebrated his 76th birthday the previous week, invited three men and three women from the crowd to join him on stage to play instruments. He then transitioned into the libation ceremony, pouring water into a plant to honor African ancestors.
“We acknowledge the ancestors who worked on those cotton fields, on the tobacco plantations…they endured all that so that their children, like you, [would] come here and remember them,” he said.
He emphasized that those ancestors were “captives,” not slaves.
The room joined him in singing the classic African American spiritual “This Little Light of Mine” by hymnist Harry Dixon Loes, a moment that unified the audience.
Throughout the afternoon, more performances highlighted different aspects of Black art and expression. A group of Nyumburu student ambassadors performed a skit, playing a family teaching the meaning of Kwanzaa.
The Maryland Gospel Choir returned later in the program to sing the traditional spiritual hymn, “Ride On, King Jesus,” encouraging the audience to stomp along while Ngwa drummed quietly in the background.
Nyumburu’s Miss Unity Scholarship Pageant Winner, Hadiya Grier, then delivered a spoken-word interpretation of “A Litany for Survival” by Audre Lorde while wearing her tiara. The poem outlines the fears marginalized voices regularly face.
“When we speak, we are afraid that our words will not be heard nor welcomed, but when we are silent, we are still afraid,” she said. “So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive.”
Toward the end of the celebration, 1977 Maryland graduate and Iota Phi Theta member, Raymond Jenkins, emphasized the importance of economic service to diverse groups on campus, such as Sisters of Unity and Love, Latin Dance Club and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He highlighted the fraternity’s financial contributions since 2023, totaling almost $7,000 to various clubs.
“We are a community as well, and we have economic power,” he said. “You just got to reach out and grab it.”
The organization’s team members served dinner from local restaurants The Jerk Pit and Carolina’s Kitchen, featuring dishes such as mac and cheese, yams, and curry chicken, among other cultural staples.
To conclude, Ngwa led a spirited “Harambee” call to action, repeated seven times with fists raised, echoing the message of collective strength that threaded through the evening. The Nyumburu Jazz Club played a final set, closing the celebration with music and fellowship.