Annual Capital City Kwanzaa Festival to return to Richmond

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- The Elegba Folklore Society is gearing up to host its annual Capital City Kwanzaa Festival.

The festival will take place at Richmond's Convention Center on Sunday, Dec. 28. According to Elegba Folklore Society, the festival is the largest of its kind in Virginia and the East Coast.

The annual festival serves as a way to observe the end-of-year celebration that is Kwanzaa, which stretches from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1 and is comprised of seven days of principles and practices while also celebrating African American culture and heritage.

Attendees can expect to see various vendors, foods, performances and more at this year's celebration.

Organizers first hosted Kwanzaa in Richmond in 1986 and started presenting the festival annually in 1990.

According to the National African American History Museum, the following principles are followed on each of the seven days the celebration takes place:

• Day 1: Umoja: Unity -- "To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race."
• Day 2: Kujichaguila: Self-Determination -- "To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves."
• Day 3: Ujima: Collective work and responsibility -- "To build and maintain our community together and make our community’s problems our problems and to solve them together."
• Day 4: Ujamaa: Cooperative Economics -- "To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together."
• Day 5: Nia: Purpose -- "To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness."
• Day 6: Kuumba: Creativity -- "To do always as much as we can to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it."
• Day 7: Imani: Faith -- "To believe with all our hearts in our people and the righteousness and victory of our struggle."

To purchase tickets ahead of the event, follow this link.