The Kwanzaa Festival of Life, Community, and Culture

The Kwanzaa Festival of Life, Community, and Culture was a week-long celebration that honors the achievements of the Black community and provides support. It occurred from December 26 to January 1 at the Sojourner Truth African Heritage Museum.

 In the fall of 2023, we came together to celebrate Día de los Muertos and Kwanzaa in December by activating our spaces. We aimed to honor our customs and traditions and raise awareness about the critical issues affecting our communities. To achieve this, we organized workshops where community members created altars, a sacred practice in our cultures. We invite everyone to attend our opening exhibition at the annual Kwanzaa Festival on December 29. The closing event will take place on February 16, 2024.

International Society of Altar Making

Curator Andrea Jennifer "YaYa" Porras

International Society of Altar Making artists construct temporary installations curated by master altar makers drawing on personal history.

Pause Portal- Can Pause Portal be the starting point to imagine new journey connections and a place to tap into and celebrate the creative energy that moves within and across our city? 

Writing a Word to an Ancester Ribbions - Curator Shonna McDaniel's invited the public to sit and write words of expression to ancestors that have passed on. 

Kwanzaa Altars and Tables are dedicated to Artists from the Community who have passed.

Honoring our ancestral obligation is summarized as recognizing and respecting the wisdom, values, and traditions passed down by our ancestors. It involves acknowledging the interconnectedness between past, present, and future generations and understanding the impact of our actions on our family and community.

Dawud Amir Rauf

Dana Miesha, installed by Shirkeri Badger and Bernadette Walton

Sojourner Truth, installed by Curator Shonna McDaniel's

Marshall Bailey 

Ancestor Female and Male Energy Photo Opportunity

installed by Judah Pimentel

The museum will be a repository during the Kwanzaa Festival, where community members can contribute various whatnots that can be part of our altar installation. They will be invited to tell their stories about the objects they contribute.

Everyone has something they like to collect. We have invited artists and our community partners to gather some of their favorite ideas to help inspire new and creative ways to make your prized collection more than just a group of dust collectors. 

Mrs Cleo Carter

Mr. Sweeney

"I AM The Altar" by Mama Azia

Mr. John Franklin King

"The What Not Shelf" Alpha Bruton

Ceremonial Corner, Writing a Prayer to Loved Ones

"On Saturday, December 30, a celebration was held inside the SOJO Museum. The purpose of the celebration was to make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community to restore our people to their traditional greatness."

"The word 'whatnot' was first used to indicate 'various things besides,' as in applied to shelves that might hold such things such as obituaries, photos, and other momentos. Growing up, I never had a whatnot, but my family did have something my mother called the 'whatnot shelf,' which we understood we weren't supposed to touch."

The Seventh Day of Kwanzaa. Finally, on this 7th and final day of Kwanzaa, we celebrate Imani. Imani means 'faith,' which can be applied to many aspects of our lives. We have expressed deep faith in our religions, creeds, love for our communities, and sacrifices, and

struggles to regain our freedom.