Preparing to celebrate Kwanzaa are (from left) Deandre White, Rita Nzinga-Burgin, Terrence Clinkscales, Kwasi Burgin, and Albert Burgin. (Steven M. Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

        Beginning today, millions of people worldwide, mostly African-Americans, will light a candle each day for a week.

        They will be observing Kwanzaa, a celebration of African ancestry and communion that calls on each person and the community to commit to seven principles, building blocks for families. The principles are:

        • Unity.
        • Self-determination.
        • Collective work and responsibility.
        • Cooperative economics.
        • Purpose.
        • Creativity.
        • Faith.

        The Enquirer last week asked some city leaders and residents how Cincinnati — as a community family — can live up to Kwanzaa's goals. Here are their responses:

        Annette Mundon, a mental health therapist in College Hill, said Kwanzaa principles should be important to every family, black or white, given the city's race difficulties.

        “With all the things that are going on in Cincinnati, we definitely need to ... recognize what is happening with families, what breaks them down and what builds them up,” she said.

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        She will host her eighth annual Kwanzaa observance Friday.

        Rita Nzinga's Bond Hill family has celebrated Kwanzaa for 24 years.

        “The principles for me are not just for Kwanzaa; they're something that you live by all year long,” she said.

Unity
        Kwanzaa is about community, too, so several community leaders lent their personal and communal thoughts to lighting the figurative candles symbolizing the seven principles.

        Mayor Charlie Luken said he plans to do many things to achieve greater unity in the city.

        “Unity is what we need more than anything else,” he said.

        “I'm working on a program that will be a lunch with the mayor, in which we'll bring down a community council or a constituency group down to the mayor's office and talk about things that people care about.

        “There's a unity component to just about everything we're doing, from police-community relations to passing the budget.”

        Norma Holt Davis, president of NAACP's Cincinnati branch, says the city must act in unity, “whether it's justice for all, a decrease in homelessness, or improving police-community relations, we need to decide as a community how we can work to make progress on that particular issue and forget about our differences.”

Self-determination
        The Rev. Damon Lynch III, pastor of New Prospect Baptist Church in Over-the-Rhine and leader of the Cincinnati Black United Front, says the community must leaving no one behind.

        “We need to ... determine Cincinnati's future by coming together and taking responsibility for ourselves, as well as for others,” he said.

        “We have to lift each other up. The key is, we are all parts of the whole... Every part must fulfill its responsibility and its purpose.”

Collective work, responsibility

OBSERVANCES

Tonight: The public can celebration at a citywide event at 6 p.m. at St. Mark Catholic Church, 3500 Montgomery Road, Evanston.     Friday: Krohn Conservatory program, free, noon to 5 p.m.

        Ross Love, president and CEO of Blue Chip Broadcasting and co-chair of Cincinnati Community Action Now, said the Cincinnati family must organize and implement plans to reduce disparities that lead to a much lower quality of life for many citizens.

        “This would involve finding ways to meaningfully employ the less-skilled among us,” he said, “successfully educate those who have historically fallen by the wayside in our school system, open the door to better housing and a better community environment for those living in our most troubled neighborhoods, and, most of all, create a culture here in which police treat all citizens, all citizens treat police, and neighbors treat neighbors with dignity, respect and open-mindedness.”

Cooperative economics
        Michael Fisher, president of the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, said the goal includes maintaining and building up businesses, and strengthening partnerships that can lead to increased opportunities.

        He said he hopes the chamber will develop stronger ties with Cincinnati Community Action Now, the Tri-State Chamber Collaborative, South Central Ohio Minority Supplier Business Council and others.

        “In the coming year I would hope that thousands of our young people will have opportunities to participate in strong and coordinated youth and summer employment programs, opportunities to develop a good work ethic, explore career path ... and earn some money,” he said.

        “I hope that dozens of our local minority businesses will get the access and support they need to tap into the increasingly successful and growing supply of diversity programs of our community's leading corporations.”

Purpose
        Ray Brokamp, president of Leadership Cincinnati, said Cincinnati's purpose should be to leverage its differences rather than allow them to separate people.

        “We have to expand our relationships,” he said.

        “We have to welcome into our lives people who come from different environments, cultures and experiences. There really is no other way to improve our community, unless we advance together and embrace in the advancement of individuals who have other perspectives.”

Creativity
        Cathy Roma, artistic director of MUSE, Cincinnati's Women's Choir, said that embracing creativity sparks a renaissance of goodwill and understanding in a diverse world.

        “I think there is nothing better than the arts to bring people together,” she said. “I think it has the ability to cross all sorts of boundaries and borders.

        She called for city leadership to improve access and support for the arts, especially in schools.

        “Creativity is linked with imagination and curiousity,” she said.

        “Providing more monies to schools that can nurture the arts and creativity would be a powerful way to improve what goes on for young people ... giving them more access to the expression of their creativity.”

Faith
        Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk of the Cincinnati archdiocese, said opening up to others is a requirement of faith.

        “Resistance to and rejection of diversity is generally an expression of selfishness or pettiness or ignorance or insecurity in addition to injustice,” he said.

        He said the word "catholic” means universal, worldwide, or all-embracing.

        “The Book of Revelation teaches us that heaven is populated by "those from every tribe and tongue, people and nation.'” he said. “If you're uncomfortable with diversity, you won't be happy there.”

        Enquirer contributors Mona Bronson-Fuqua and Andy Knight of Cincinnati.com contributed to this report.

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