Photo Flash: Inside the First Annual Kwanzaa Celebration at Sisters Uptown Bookstore

More than 75 children and adults celebrated Kwanzaa -- focusing on Ujamaa or Cooperative Economics for the fourth day of the seven-day cultural holiday observed globally across the Africa Diaspora - on Saturday, December 29, 2018 at Sisters Uptown Bookstore & Cultural Center in Washington Heights.

With the theme, "Bringing Our Youth to Our History," young and old joined in the Kwanzaa celebration with song, music, arts & crafts, African head-wrapping, improvisation, and free Kwanzaa coloring books for the children, following the Libation to Our Ancestors and discussion of the 7 Kwanzaa Principles conducted by Priestess Nettie Paisley and African drumming and storytelling by Atibe Wilson. MC Kwesi McDavid led young ones in lighting of the kinara. Aqila Muhammad helped children create Mkeka or Kwanzaa place mats; Charlene Wingate sang "The Corinthian Song" with personal narrative; Karen Taborn taught blues rhythms on keyboard; Yemi Abioye treated youth & elders to African head-wrapping styles; and Jeremiah Drake guided young people in improvisation. This was the first annual Kwanzaa celebration to be hosted by Sisters Uptown Book Club, whose members prepared and served the karamu or Kwanzaa feast and meet monthly at Sisters Uptown Bookstore & Cultural Center, which is owned and operated by Janifer Wilson and her daughter Kori Wilson. Established in 2000,

"Sisters" is located at 156th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan. For additional information, contact: 212.862.3680 / sistersuptownbookstore@yahoo.com.