Nguzo Saba

Although most widely known as the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa, the Nguzo Saba (pronounced En-goo'zôh Sah'-bah) are the core values of Kawaida philosophy, a philosophy of cultural and social change out of which Kwanzaa and the Nguzo Saba were created. Evolving in the midst of the black freedom movement of the sixties, the Nguzo Saba reflect central themes from it as well as from communitarian African culture and philosophy. Developed in 1965 by Maulana Karenga, an activist scholar, chair of the organization Us, and currently a professor of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach, the Nguzo Saba were put forth as a communitarian African value system essential to building and developing community, strengthening the African liberation struggle, and cultivating and expanding social practice rooted in African culture.

As originally introduced by Maulana Karenga and the organization Us, the Nguzo Saba were given in Swahili and English to affirm their rootedness in African culture and to capture their communitarian character, that is, their emphasis on family, community, and culture. The words nguzo saba are Swahili words for principles and seven, respectively. Karenga provided the Seven Principles with their original meanings as follows: “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 to make our brother's and sister's 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 hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.”

Since their introduction in the sixties, the Nguzo Saba have become the basis for cultural grounding and value orientation of many independent schools, rites of passage programs, cooperatives, Black Student Unions, educational programs, and various other community and professional organizations, institutions, and programs in the United States. The Nguzo Saba have also spread throughout the world African community through educational and cultural exchanges and through the practice of Kwanzaa, a pan-African holiday that celebrates family, community, and culture. In fact, one of the reasons Karenga created Kwanzaa was to introduce and affirm the importance of the Nguzo Saba and other communitarian African values (i.e., values that stress family, community, and culture). Thus, Kwanzaa is a 7-day holiday in which each day is organized around the discussion and practice of each of the Seven Principles.

As Kawaida and the Nguzo Saba have developed over the years, the original interpretation of the principles has expanded to reflect both a reaffirmation of the original message of cultural grounding and struggle and extended meanings to address current concerns and issues. Thus, in Karenga's Annual Founder's Kwanzaa Message, 2000, on the official Kwanzaa Web site, he explains the following particular and the universal meaning of the principles.

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