When Dr. Maulana Karenga founded the African-American holiday of Kwanzaa in 1966, Los Angeles was still cleaning up from the Wattsrace riots of the year before.

Black soldiers were starting to die with grim regularity in the jungles of Vietnam.

And civil rights champions Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were both two years away from the assassinsbullets that would end their lives.

Kwanzaa, Karenga said then, would use its simple reverence as a spiritual balm of healing for those raw days.

Karenga will be the keynote speaker at WVU s annual Kwanzaa observance Friday, Dec. 2, at 6:30 p.m. in the Towers Ballrooms on the Evansdale campus. The celebration will feature the traditional Kwanzaa feast and music.

As always, the centerpiece of the event will be the lighting of the seven-candled Kinarawhich represents Kwanzaas seven core values of unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.

The gathering will be hosted by WVU s Center for Black Culture and Research and the WVU National Pan-Hellenic Council.

Those planning to attend are asked to RSVP at 304-293-7029 by Monday, Nov. 28.

Kwanzaa, which comes from the Swahili phrase,matunda ya kwanza,or,first fruits,is just as relevant now as it was when Karenga founded it 39 years ago, CBC &R assistant director Todd McFadden said.

The principles of Kwanzaa are a wonderful model for any community,McFadden said.It will be a privilege to have the founder of Kwanzaa here to bring those principles to WVU . We are very honored to have Dr. Karenga with us for our Kwanzaa celebration.

Karenga, meanwhile, has gone on to travel the world, lecturing on Kwanzaa and human rights for all people. Hes a professor of black studies at California State University at Long Beach and the author of several scholarly books and articles. He also helped shape the Black Arts and Black Power movements of the 1960s.

He holds doctorates in political science and social ethics from the University of Southern California and United States International University; and an honorary doctorate of philosophy from the University of Durban-Westville, South Africa.