By Godfrey Lee

Oshalla Diana Marcus hosted the Imani Vision Board Party at the MC Arts Gallery in Marin City on Saturday, New Year’s Day, starting the New Year celebrating the principles of Kwanzaa.

Vision boarding is a fun activity involving clipping pictures and words out of magazines to visually represent the life you want to see for yourself. Marcus wrote in her announcement that “many see vision boarding as creating art, while others see it as therapy. However, all can agree that it is fun, especially when combined with healthy traditional New Year’s Day Soul Food: rice, greens, black-eyed peas, chicken, corn bread, and a little sweet wine.”

A small group of women came to the vision board party, including Brittney Burton and Ayana Morgan-Woodard who helped Marcus organize the event. Mz. Ebony Divine McKinley said it didn’t matter how many people came. “It is not your loss; it is their loss.

They miss out on a beautiful event. Don’t take it as a failure. Just look at it as I’m giving it to you,” she said.

Marcus said that the event is an opportunity for us to model, create and imagine something in new ways, especially in our work and world. Kwanzaa was a holiday that reminds us that we can be sustainable and self-sufficient. “It is important to really understand this about our culture. So, let’s own it.” Oshalla said.

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Marcus also honored the ancestors who came before us and brought us to where we are now.

Kwanzaa was created by Dr. Maulana Karenga, professor and chairman of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach, in 1966. After the Watts riots in Los Angeles, Dr. Karenga searched for ways to bring African Americans together as a community.

Karenga combined aspects of several different African harvest celebrations, such as those of the Ashanti and the Zulu, to form the basis of the week-long holiday.

The Swahili term ‘umoja’ means ‘unity’ to strive for and maintain in the family, community, nation and race.

‘Kujichagulia’ means ‘self-determination,’ to define, name, create and speak for oneself.

‘Ujima’ means ‘collective work and responsibility,’ to build, uplifting your community together and to help one another in your community.

‘Ujama’ means ‘cooperative economics.’ Similar to Ujima, this principle refers to uplifting your community economically, and to build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.

‘Nia’ means ‘purpose’ or to collectively build and developing of the community in order to restore it to its traditional greatness.

‘Kuumba’ meaning ‘creativity,’ to use our creativity and imagination in order to make our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

‘Imani,’ the final principle, translates to ‘faith’ in the community, and “to believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, teachers, leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle,” says Karenga.

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