Ambrya Holifield remembers the dropped flag.
Her brother, Isaias Emmanuel James Holifield, had been tasked with carrying the African-American flag at a Kwanzaa Celebration in Portland in 2015. In the celebration rehearsal EJ became fed up with some admonishment he received, and decided to drop the flag on the ground, and storm out of Portland Community College’s Moriarty Arts Auditorium.
“He was like, ‘I don’t want to walk the flag.’ And then he just dropped it,” Ambrya, 17, recalled with a laugh. “I was like, ‘No. Don’t do that. You have to follow through on what you’re doing.’ ”
That was a small blip in the flag-carrying career of Emmanuel, or EJ, who developed a deep pride in flag-bearing and loved how he “looked like a strong man” while doing it, said his mother, Zoezita Holifield. Up until his death at age 12 in April from a brain tumor, celebration organizer and EJ’s cousin Ruby Lewis considered EJ “the bubbly center” of the Kwanzaa Celebration, which will shift from Portland to New Direction Community Church in Vancouver. This year’s celebration features African dancing and drumming, a Karamu feast and Zawadi gifts, similar to previous years.
“Kwanzaa is very significant because you learn about your heritage and your culture,” Lewis added. “We want to do the tribute so people know Kwanzaa isn’t just another holiday. It’s about family. It’s about culture. It’s about representation. … You look at the news, people are always talking about how African-Americans are scary or something negative. And we want Kwanzaa to be about something positive.”