The Student Leadership Center will host a celebration of dance, music, food, family unity and community spirit on Saturday, Nov. 17 during Sinclair\u2019s annual Pre-Kwanzaa event.<\/p>\n
Pre-Kwanzaa will run from 5\u00a0 to 8:30 p.m. in the Student Leadership Center in the Lower Level of Building 8. The event is hosted by the African\u2013American Studies and Cultural Diversity Committee and admission is free.<\/p>\n
The event\u2019s theme of \u201cMaintaining the Family Unity and Revitalizing the Community,\u201d holds special meaning to Dr. Boikai Twe, chairperson of the Psychology and African Studies Department. Twe first celebrated Kwanzaa at Sinclair\u2019s original Pre-Kwanzaa event and credits Sinclair students for introducing him to the holiday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe students invited one of the elders of the community to come to Sinclair to celebrate Kwanzaa and that was the first time I had celebrated Kwanzaa,\u201d Twe said.\u00a0 \u201cIt taught me that you can learn things from students and the community. We live in a community where, if you keep your eyes open, your life can be enriched by the community and the students around you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guest speaker Mary L. Baker, a retired City of Dayton police officer, who now works part-time in the Sinclair Police Department, plans to echo Twe\u2019s sentiments of celebrating community while stressing the importance of family values.<\/p>\n
\u201c I believe in planning for tomorrow, planning out my life and I want to talk about my children, how I raised them and I want to talk about my grandchildren,\u201d Baker said. \u201cMy message is maintaining the family unit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since February of 2005, Baker has patrolled the hallways and commons areas of Sinclair, interacting with countless students along the way. During her time at Sinclair, Baker has used her interactions as a way of reminding students about the role education plays in their lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I walk and talk with students, I try to emphasize the importance of an education,\u201d Baker said. \u201cNot only are students competing with people here in the United States of America, but they\u2019re competing on an international level. Over in Egypt, they have language schools and you can learn any language that you want. When I look at different countries, I\u2019m seeing that they\u2019re educating their young people to go out into the world and work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The musical portion of the event will include a performance by local musician Victor Pate, who co-leads the group Unified Swag Theory, along with bassist and Music Director Luther Wright III.\u00a0 Pate describes his and Wright\u2019s sound as hip-hop jazz.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something people can bob their head to,\u201d Pate said, who plays guitar and guitar synthesizer for the group.<\/p>\n
In addition to Unified Swag Theory, Pre-Kwanzaa will also feature acts by Memories of Africa featuring Maiya Calhoun, a family band that specializes in African-American and Folk music and Kuumba Drama-Drum & Dance Company. They have performed at Pre-Kwanzaa for the past 10 years, Twe said.<\/p>\n
Along with the three scheduled musical performances, those attending Pre-Kwanzaa will be treated to Karamu, a Swahili term for feast.\u00a0 Twe said the feast will be a soul food dinner, where members of the community will bring dishes of food to share that consist mainly of traditional African-American foods, such as black-eyed peas and collard greens.<\/p>\n
For more information, contact Twe at 512-2913.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Student Leadership Center will host a celebration of dance, music, food, family unity and community spirit on Saturday, Nov. 17 during Sinclair\u2019s annual Pre-Kwanzaa event. Pre-Kwanzaa will run from 5\u00a0 to 8:30 p.m. in the Student Leadership Center in the Lower Level of Building 8. The event is hosted by the African\u2013American Studies and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-2ae","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8322"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8327,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8322\/revisions\/8327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}