A Berkshire County Kwanzaa gathering with conversation, song, and dance is being held in Pittsfield, Massachusetts on Saturday. The week-long holiday celebrating African American culture first observed in 1966 kicked off Thursday and continues until January 1st. The event is hosted by The Women of Color Giving Circle and the Rites of Passage and Empowerment Program or R.O.P.E., and will take place at Zion Lutheran Church at 6 p.m. R.O.P.E. founder Shirley Edgerton spoke with WAMC.
EDGERTON: We are excited to host it again and to invite the community to celebrate, to learn, and just be in a unified state and celebrate the cultural and history of African Americans. And it's not just African Americans, because the seven principles of Kwanzaa very much are in keeping with whom most of us want to be in our country.
WAMC: Now, this year, are you highlighting any of those principles for the Berkshire celebration of Kwanzaa?
Well, our theme this year is “where do we go from here?” Given some of the national and local concerns that have arisen- Like, for example, the reversing of Roe versus Wade, some of the other concerns in terms of voting rights and other inequities that have become a conversation. Again, that's our focus this year. The theme is, “where do we go from here,” and we have some of our young adults from our community who will be addressing those issues and leading us in a conversation. So, as far as we're concerned, most of the principles are in keeping with the conversation that we will be having tomorrow. It's about unity, it's about self-determination, it's about faith, it's about purpose. So, all of the Kwanza principles will be totally elevated and discussed within that conversation that will be led by our young people.
Tell us about the music and dance and celebration that will accompany that conversation at the Kwanzaa celebration.
Well, I'm totally excited about that as well. We have two of our young people from our community, again- James Ryan, who often leads us in the national anthem at the Pittsburgh High School basketball games. We have Abby Percy, who is a R.O.P.E. alum who's now attending BCC. The two of them will share their beautiful voices and sing for us. And then we have Samirah Evans, who is an incredible, soulful jazz and blues singer, as well as a professor at Williams College. So, we, as usual, we have some of the best in the West that will share their beautiful talents with us. Then we also have our R.O.P.E. girls who went to Ghana, who will be led by Noel [Staples-Freeman], who is just an amazing African dance choreographer and dancer herself. She will lead in a celebration of African dance and our young women who went to Ghana this past summer will dance and celebrate Kwanza. They will be the ones that will be chairing and educating us on the principles and lighting the candles and leading us in the celebration.
