Every day from December 26-January 1, Pax Christi USA will share a reflection on one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa. Pax Christi USA National Field Organizer Stephen Niamke has prepared each piece to show how Kwanzaa is an effective approach to community organizing — a celebratory, nonviolent, Afrocentric approach to wellness, justice, and peace.
In 2024, Executive Director Charlene Howard wrote, “Kwanzaa is an African American holiday … to celebrate family, community and culture. Although it was not designed to be a religious holiday, the seven principles possess a spiritual quality that is evident in holy scripture and resonates with our principles of Catholic Social Teaching inspired by Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum. The binding thread is acknowledging that we thrive in community and common care for one another.”
Day 5: Nia/Purpose: Aligning family, community, and movement toward collective restoration
To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness
Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you… plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” While Kwanzaa is clearly a secular holiday, this scripture echoes Nia’s affirmation that purpose anchors hope.
The Kwanzaa ceremony: On the fifth day of Kwanzaa, the middle green candle is lit. Green symbolizes the future—hope, possibility, and growth yet to come. By the time Nia is reached, unity has been affirmed, identity reclaimed, responsibility shared, and economic cooperation initiated. The question that now emerges is not what are we doing, but why are we doing it?
Nia calls African American families and communities to live with intention. It insists that life is not merely about survival or individual achievement, but about contributing to something larger than oneself. In a society that often measures worth by productivity or status, Nia re-centers meaning in service, restoration, and collective uplift.
Nia in the family: Grounding and purposeful aspirations in a collective uplift: Within the family, Nia provides a framework for shaping dreams. It asks parents and caregivers to guide children not only toward personal success, but toward purposeful contribution. This does not limit ambition; it clarifies it.
Families practicing Nia engage in conversations such as:
- How do our gifts serve the community?
- What kind of people do we want to become together?
- How do our choices today shape the world our children will inherit?
- What is the legacy of our Ancestors and how do we carry it forward?
This orientation helps children understand that their lives matter beyond individual accomplishment. It also provides emotional stability. Purpose offers resilience when circumstances are difficult, helping families endure hardship without losing direction.
Purpose gives us roots, stability, and clarity. It gives a firm place to stand, and, more importantly, a foundation from which to reach, jump, land, and to build.
Nia as community wellness: Aligning institutions with community-defined goals: At the community level, Nia functions as a compass. Without shared purpose, institutions drift, organizations compete, and movements lose coherence. Nia calls communities to collectively define what restoration looks like and to align resources accordingly. This is key in any level of negotiation that may exist with others in order for the Beloved Community to come into being.
This includes:
- Schools oriented toward cultural affirmation and critical thinking
- Faith and cultural institutions committed to healing rather than control
- Economic initiatives aligned with community needs
- Organizing efforts guided by long-term vision rather than reactive urgency
From a wellness standpoint, communities grounded in Nia experience less burnout and fragmentation. Purpose reduces exhaustion by reminding people why the work matters. It can also foster accountability by evaluating the result of actions taken toward achieving the collective goals. An Africentric perspective expressed in the proverb “The future belongs to those who prepare for it today” underscores Nia’s forward-looking ethic.
For those harmed by institutions that distorted purpose—particularly religious institutions that justified oppression, Nia offers a reclaimed sense of calling without coercion. It invites spiritual grounding rooted in service and restoration rather than submission.
One of the deepest wounds inflicted by oppression is the disruption of purpose. Enslavement, displacement, and systemic exclusion severed African peoples from cultural continuity and communal vocation. Nia directly addresses this rupture by reconnecting present action to ancestral intention. This reconnection is thoroughly empowering. It restores meaning where despair once lived. It affirms and justifies the very existence of the African American in the context of a world that has stated otherwise. Nia stands in direct defiance of a history that denies the worth of people of African descent.
Nia in nonviolent community organizing: For nonviolent movements, Nia is essential. Organizing without purpose risks becoming reactive—responding to injustice without building toward transformation. Nia ensures that resistance is paired with construction. That is, establishing new systems, institutions, policies, programs that support civil and human rights. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called these institutional changes “constructive programs.” He understood that systematic and institutional would only be sustainable if new structures were created.
Nia promotes purpose-driven organizing that:
- Clarifies goals beyond the opposition
- Sustains engagement over long periods
- Aligns tactics with values
- Always keeps the ultimate goal in mind
- Prevents mission drift and makes internal conflict manageable
Nia also reframes sacrifice. In nonviolent movements, people often endure setbacks, criticism, and slow progress. Purpose contextualizes these experiences, transforming frustration into commitment. The journey is long, arduous, scary at times, and requires extreme sacrifice. Nia is that quiet inspiration that makes the next possible when it seems impossible.
Purpose as a nonviolent force: Nia teaches that justice and peace are not endpoints; they are processes guided by intention. When families live with purpose, communities organize with clarity, and movements act with vision, and transformation becomes sustainable. As the green candle burns, it lights the way for a future shaped not by reaction, but by resolve. Nia reminds us that purpose is not found—it is practiced and cultivated.
An Africentric proverb captures this orientation: “If you do not know where you are going, any road will take you there.” Nia ensures that families choose their path intentionally.
Note regarding the use of “Africentric“
From Baobab Tree: “In education, Afrocentrism has generally had an inward focus, bringing needed self-knowledge to Black children. Africentrism, in our usage, is outwardly focused – on what Black culture means in larger cultural contexts.”