St. Cloud's 27th Annual Kwanzaa Celebration held this weekend

St. Cloud's 27th Annual Kwanzaa event will be held from 6-9 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 10 at the Whitney Senior Center in St. Cloud and in person. The event, which is free and open to the public, will feature food, gifts and performances.

Sahara Gibson, executive director at Too Much Talent, shared with the Times on what to expect. Visitors will get to experience a Michael Jackson showcase, dance performances, and a special appearance by Sarah Drake who is an award-winning collagist and author-illustrator.

Kwanzaa is annual holiday that is supposed to affirm African family and social values. Both the name and the celebration were devised in 1966 by Maulana Karenga, a professor of Africana studies at California State University in Long Beach and an important figure in Afrocentrism. Karenga borrowed the word kwanza, meaning “first,” from the Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza. He added the seventh letter, an extra a, to make the word long enough where each letter represents the seven children present at an early celebration.

Kwanzaa is celebrated mostly in the U.S., especially amongst African Americans, from December 26 to January 1. The Annual event will be open to the entire public.

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This event is a community collaboration sponsored by the African American Male Forum, City of St. Cloud, Diggin’ Diversity Club, Sauk Rapids-Rice Middle School, Higher Works Collaborative, NAACP St. Cloud branch, St. Cloud State University, Too Much Talent, United Way of Central Minnesota, and Whitney Senior Center.

For more information, call 320-281-3129.

This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: St. Cloud's 27th Annual Kwanzaa Celebration is coming this weekend