December 6, 2025, from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the San Marcos Public Library at 625 E. Hopkins in San Marcos, TX. Afrocentric attire and/or a combination of red, black, and green. Best dressed will win a prize!

This year, the Dunbar Heritage Association will host a pre-Kwanzaa celebration. Kwanzaa is a non-religious, cultural holiday that focuses on family, community, and culture. Kwanzaa is modeled after the first harvest celebrations in Africa, and the meaning of the name Kwanzaa comes from the Swahili phrase “matunda ya kwanza” which means the “first fruits” of the harvest. The annual celebration takes place from December 26 thru January 1. 

Each night of the celebration highlights one of the 7 principles of Kwanzaa known as the Nguza Saba.

SEVEN PRINCIPLES – SEVEN DAYS OF THE WEEK:

1. Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
2. Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
3. Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems and to solve them together.
4. Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
5. Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
6. Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
7. Imani (Faith): To believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

How will you and YOUR family celebrate?!