45th Annual Kwanzaa Celebration: December 27th, Kujichagulia

45th Annual Kwanzaa Celebration
Doors 6pm | Program 6:30PM

WorldBeat Cultural Center will be celebrating its 45th Annual Celebration with 4 of the 7 days of Kwanzaa. Kwanzaa is an African American Holiday celebrated from the 26th of December to the 1st of January. The annual Kwanzaa holiday was created by Dr. Maulana Karenga to celebrate and reaffirm family, community, and culture.

Kwanzaa was a celebration that was established as a means to help African Americans reconnect with their African cultural and historical heritage by uniting in meditation and study of African traditions and Nguzu Saba, the “seven principles of African Heritage” which Karenga said “is a communitarian African philosophy”.

Each night will feature Special guest speakers or performers, Ceremonial candle lighting and libation with drumming, poetry readings, and Karamu (the traditional feast and family get down).

Each evening will be hosted by MC Selah Black Sol

Day 2: Saturday, December 27th: Kujichagulia- Self-Determination
Keynote Speaker and Performance

Dr. Edda L. Fields-Black
Dr. Edda L. Fields-Black, a Pulitzer Prize–winning author and historian at Carnegie Mellon University, is a leading scholar of West African rice farmers and the African Diaspora, known for works such as Deep Roots and the co-edited Rice: Global Networks and New Histories. She has consulted for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and is the executive producer and librettist of the contemporary classical work Unburied, Unmourned, Unmarked: Requiem for Rice. Her latest book, COMBEE: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War, uncovers Tubman’s overlooked role as a military spy and commander during the raid that freed 756 enslaved people—the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history. A descendant of Africans enslaved on South Carolina rice plantations and a U.S. Colored Troops soldier who fought in the raid, Fields-Black’s work bridges continents as she illuminates Gullah Geechee history, culture, and language through interdisciplinary research in the Low Country and West Africa.

Mariea Antoinette
Harpist Mariea Antoinette returns with her signature fusion of classical mastery and contemporary soul. Her dynamic, genre-bending style elevates every stage with warmth, virtuosity, and innovation.