“If you can disrespect the ancestor, you can disrespect us,” warned the United Negro Improvement Association’s (UNIA) Senghor Baye. As the Woodson Banneker Jackson-Bey Division 330 chapter of the UNIA First Assistant President General opened the annual Kwanzaa Celebration with broad meaning, the small wooden church began to fill with almost 100 celebrants.

The annual Kwanzaa event was held at the Macedonia Baptist Church in Bethesda, MD, the last remnant of a once-thriving post-Civil War Black community. Parts of the church’s Moses Macedonia African Cemetery are now a parking lot. Supported by the UNIA, the church seeks to memorialize the site and our ancestors.

The educational and entertaining ceremony featured music, a creative poem, and the presentation of the UNIA’s Marcus Mosiah Garvey Outstanding Community Service Awards.

The UNIA presented Port of Harlem magazine with an award for over thirty years of providing meaningful information to the African community. The night was special for the 30-year-old publication as former financial writer and cover model Aza Zhenga Smith (Donna Smith), featured on the August–October 2008 issue, accepted her award.

The UNIA has hosted the Nia (Ki-Swahili meaning purpose) Kwanzaa event since 1980, and Baba Mosi is the Minister of Info and the President of Div 330. Garvey was a Jamaican political activist, pan-Africanist, and founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. Kwanza is an annual celebration of African-American culture from December 26 to January 1.