Imani: Belief In One's Ancestors

Habari Gani! We just got home from Alanna Naledi's first Quaker Meeting for Worship in Michigan with my dad. Dad's in the kitchen trying to finish up the Harambee cake he makes every year, a three layered cake with red, white and yellow layers and a brown icing to represent the four races of humans. Harambee is Swahili for "All pull together" and is the motto of Kenya. The cake is something he's made every year of my life to teach us that in order to survive and thrive, all races must come together.

Today's principle, Imani, is the principle symbolizing faith. Most people think this means faith and belief in God, but the Kwanzaa principle is more about faith and belief in one another. We know already that hatred is on the rise in this world, but we must believe that there is something beyond that, or else getting through it will never be possible. I know that my ancestors had to have this kind of faith or they would never have survived the horrors of MAAFA, the Middle Passage where so many of my ancestors were tortured and murdered before even reaching the "New World" where more of them were tortured and murdered.