The seven principles of Kwanzaa, known as Nguzo Saba, are as follows:
- Umoja (Unity): To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
- Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define, name, create, and speak for oneself.
- Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain the community together and make our brothers and sisters problems our problems and to solve them together.
- Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
- Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
- Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
- Imani (Faith): To believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.
These principles are central to the celebration of Kwanzaa and are reflected in the activities and rituals of the holiday, such as lighting a candle for each principle on the Kinara (candle holder) and engaging in various activities to breathe meaning into the principles.
