Build the community
Our collective vocation is the building and developing of our community.
Black Storytellers Alliance / Nguzo Saba
Day Five • Fifth Principle
PURPOSENIA
To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
PURPOSELEGACYCUSTODIANSHIPCOMMUNITY BUILDING
Nia / 01
The principle
Purpose bigger than the individual.
Nia is a commitment to the collective building, developing, and defending of our community, culture, and history, regaining our historical greatness as a people that add to the good, beauty, and well-being of the world.
Nia reminds us that we carry the legacy of being the fathers and mothers of humanity, human civilization, and basic human morality. We are the custodians as well as the heirs to a great civilization.
To inherit is to receive a legacy, place adequate value on it, and make the traditions part of one’s life. As custodians of a great legacy, we guard, preserve, expand, and promote it.
Core thought
We honor this legacy by building on it, expanding it, and leaving it even more enriched for future generations to come.
Receive the legacy
Inheritance requires valuing the traditions we receive and making them part of our lives.
Guard and expand
Custodians preserve, expand, promote, and enrich the legacy for those who come next.
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The deeper practice
Purpose carries history forward.
Nia places purpose inside the long arc of culture, community, and human contribution.
Develop the community
Commit to the building, development, and defense of community, culture, and history.
Value the legacy
Recognize the greatness inherited from those who came before.
Add to human history
We have made and must continue to make significant contributions to human history.
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Cultural foundation
Restore. Develop. Defend.
Nia is based on the promise that in order to restore African-American people to our former greatness, we must be committed to building, developing, and defending our national and international community.
Trace the foundation
Inheriting Nia includes tracing our civilizational origins to Africa.
Be the best one can be
Nia is being the best one can be.
Promote culture
Personal excellence is joined with promoting cultural awareness throughout the community.
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Living the principle
Turn purpose into inheritance.
Nia asks what we will build, protect, and leave behind so the next generation receives more than we did.
Preserve the history, values, and traditions entrusted to us.
Build on what came before and enrich it.
Leave the inheritance more enriched for future generations.