Parade Set Along Crenshaw Boulevard For Start Of Kwanzaa
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — A parade will be held along Crenshaw Boulevard Sunday to mark the beginning of Kwanzaa, a weeklong celebration.
The parade is expected to begin at noon at the corner of Crenshaw and Adams boulevards and will conclude south along Crenshaw to Leimert Park with a festival held at the park thereafter.
"Improving Ourselves Naturally" is the theme of the 34th annual Kwanzaa Gwaride Parade and will focus on lowering obesity, reducing hypertension and preventing diabetes, according to Tammy Lee of People of Color, the parade's organizers.
Eve Allen, a doctor of alternative healing practices, will be the Iyaba (queen) of the parade and the herbalist and record producer Doctah B Sirius will be the oba (king).
Kwanzaa was created in 1966 by Maulana Karenga, now a professor in Cal State Long Beach's Department of Africana Studies in what he called "an audacious act of self-determination."
"In its most essential understanding and expression, Kwanzaa is a celebration of family, community and culture with each providing a context and commitment of common ground, cooperative practice and shared good," Karenga wrote in his annual founder's message.
"Kwanzaa is a celebration of the family which first forms us, names, nurtures and sustains us and teaches us upright and uplifting ways to understand and assert ourselves in the world."
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