Postal Service Dedicating Kwanzaa Forever Stamp

Jul 17, 2023

Sept. 13, 2022

What:

The U.S. Postal Service continues its tradition of celebrating Kwanzaa, an annual Pan-African holiday that brings family, community, and culture together for many African Americans.

The first-day-of-issue event for the Kwanzaa Forever stamp is free and open to the public. News of the stamp is being shared with the hashtag #KwanzaaStamps.

Who:

Eddie L. Banner, Kansas-Missouri District manager and dedicating official

When:

Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022, at 11 a.m. CDT

Where:

America's Center Ferrara Theater 701 Convention Plaza St. Louis, MO 63101

RSVP:

Dedication ceremony attendees are encouraged to RSVP at: www.usps.com/kwanzaa

Background:

With this new stamp design, the U.S. Postal Service continues its tradition of celebrating Kwanzaa. The annual Pan-African holiday, which takes place over seven days from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1, brings family, community, and culture together for many African Americans.

The stamp design depicts two children — a girl and a boy — standing together with a kinara (candleholder) and the seven lit candles (mishumaa saba) in front of them. They are dressed in robes akin to spiritual garments. A light-blue circle behind the children's heads represents wholeness and unifies the figures, and a mosaic motif frames the background.

Kwanzaa is a festive time for rejoicing in the prospect of health, prosperity and good luck in the coming year. It is also a time for contemplation and recollection of past hardships, faced by both individuals and communities, and the ways in which history can inform and affect future happiness.

Each year, millions of African Americans gather with friends and family throughout the week of Kwanzaa to honor the holiday's seven founding principles — unity (umoja), self-determination (kujichagulia), collective work and responsibility (ujima), cooperative economics (ujamaa), purpose (nia), creativity (kuumba), and faith (imani).

With origins in ancient and modern first-harvest festivities occurring across the African continent, Kwanzaa incorporates and reimagines many communal traditions as a contemporary celebration and reaffirmation of African American culture.

Artist director Antonio Alcalá designed the stamp with original artwork by Erin Robinson.

The Kwanzaa stamp is being issued as a Forever stamp. This stamp will always be equal in valued to the current First-Class Mail 1-ounce price.

Customers may purchase stamps and other philatelic products through the Postal Store at usps.com/shopstamps, by calling 844-737-7826, by mail through USA Philatelic or at Post Office locations nationwide.

The Postal Service generally receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

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