Columbia Parks and Recreation hosts annual Kwanzaa celebration and business expo

COLUMBIA – Columbia Parks and Recreation hosted its annual Kwanzaa celebration Saturday at the Armory Sports Center downtown. The celebration was free and open to anyone, and included performances, food and refreshments, as well as a business expo featuring local Black-owned businesses. Kwanzaa is an African American and Pan-African holiday founded in 1966 in the U.S. The holiday features a cultural message that “speaks to the best of what it means to be African and human in the fullest sense,” according to the official Kwanzaa website. Each year, the Columbia event includes its Black-Owned Business Expo, which features several local Black-owned businesses and vendors. The seven principles of Kwanzaa, according to its official website, are unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. The business expo focuses on the principle of cooperative economics. “We thought it was a great way to incorporate that principle by getting a bunch of Black-owned local businesses out and having the community come and support them,” said Jay Bradley, recreation specialist with Columbia Parks and Recreation. Chandra Prince has been doing hair for 33 years, and runs a local business making hair and body products. Her business, The Hair Bar, opened...