Kuumba Cultural Collective — 38 Years of Culture in Colorado Springs

JUL • 2026

Roots to Resiliency Initiative

Launching Summer 2026 • Pueblo & El Paso Counties

Cultural Identity as Behavioral Health

A four-pillar program fusing trauma-informed peer support, African percussion workshops, nutrition sovereignty training, and AI literacy — treating cultural disconnection as the root pathogen, not the symptom.

Learn More →

NOV 7 2026

29th Pre-Kwanzaa African Marketplace

Saturday, November 7, 2026

Hillside Community Center, 925 S. Institute

Free, family-friendly, and open to the public. African crafts, clothing, art, community organizations, poets, spoken-word artists, storytellers, drummers, and dancers.

Vendor Registration →

DEC 26 2026

37th Annual Citywide Kwanzaa Celebration

December 26 – 31, 2026

Colorado Springs

Six nights celebrating the Nguzo Saba — the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa. A celebration of family, community, and culture open to all.

Learn the Seven Principles →

NEXT • 2028

Rhythms & Motions Drumming & Dance Festival

Next edition coming 2028

Colorado Springs

A family-friendly cultural celebration featuring African and African American drumming, dance, spoken word, poetry, storytelling, and vendors. Past performers include Cleo Parker Robinson Dance and Youth Ethiopian Dancers of Colorado.

The Seven Principles

Nguzo Saba

The foundation of Kwanzaa — a value system rooted in communitarian African philosophy.

Umoja

Unity

To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.

Kujichagulia

Self-Determination

To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.

Ujima

Collective Work & Responsibility

To build and maintain our community together and make our people's problems our problems and to solve them together.

Ujamaa

Cooperative Economics

To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.

Nia

Purpose

To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

Kuumba

Creativity

To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

Imani

Faith

To believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

Go Deeper

The Black Candle

Directed by M.K. Asante, Jr. and narrated by Maya Angelou, The Black Candle is the definitive documentary on Kwanzaa — tracing the African roots of the Nguzo Saba and the vision of Dr. Maulana Karenga. Essential watching for anyone who wants to understand not just what the principles say, but where they come from.

Watch on YouTube →

Our Journey

38 Years of Culture

1989

The Beginning

On December 26th, 1989, the Colorado Springs Citywide Kwanzaa Celebration is founded, bringing the principles of the Nguzo Saba to the Pikes Peak region for the first time.

1997

The African Marketplace Launches

The Pre-Kwanzaa African Marketplace begins as a space for vendors, artists, and community organizations to gather and celebrate African culture and commerce.

2005

A New Name, Same Mission

The organization is renamed the Kuumba Cultural Collective of Southern Colorado, expanding its mission beyond Kwanzaa to year-round cultural programming.

2017

Rhythms & Motions Festival

The Drumming and Dance Festival grows into a major cultural event, featuring nationally recognized performers including Cleo Parker Robinson Dance.

2025

The Legacy Continues

After careful vetting, Dr. Young passes the torch to a new generation of leaders — carrying forward 38 years of cultural stewardship into a new era, while he answers a deeper call, settling in Rwanda and serving as a living bridge between Kuumba and the continent.

2026

Roots to Resiliency

The Roots to Resiliency Initiative launches, a four-pillar program fusing cultural identity with behavioral health across Pueblo and El Paso Counties.

Timeline dates are approximate. Help us fill in the details — share your memories.

Our Leadership

The Board

Dr. Anthony P. Young

Founder

Dr. Anthony P. Young has spent nearly five decades doing the work that most institutions talk about — and the organizations, programs, and people he's built along the way are the evidence.

As a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist, his career has touched nearly every corner of Colorado's behavioral health and justice systems — from Manager of Offender Mental Health Services and Clinical Team Leader at the Institute for Forensic Psychiatry, to Acting Director of the Diagnostic Reception Center for the Department of Corrections and Clinical Supervisor at Pikes Peak Mental Health Center. He also served as a clinician with the Disabled American Veterans, and spent 26 years as an Adjunct Instructor of Psychology at UCCS before retiring in 2024 after 35 years of state service.

But Dr. Young didn't just serve within systems. He changed them.

Appointed to the Colorado State Board of Parole in 1991 and named its Chairman in 2011, he introduced evidence-based practices that shifted how the state approaches the transition of returning citizens — prioritizing public safety and human dignity at the same time. He also built what the system couldn't provide: Tutmose Academy, Harrison School District's first charter school for high-risk high school students, and the Tutmose Enrichment Program keeping middle schoolers out of the suspension pipeline before it caught them.

Nationally, he served as President of the Association of Black Psychologists, establishing its Leadership Development Institute, which he directed for over a decade. He is a Founding Member and President Emeritus of the Denver–Rocky Mountain Association of Black Psychologists, a former Chair of Colorado's Minority Health Advisory Commission, and currently serves as Board Chair of the Denver Center for African Art.

He is the CEO of Achieving Healthier Lifestyles and the Executive Director and Founder of the Kuumba Cultural Collective of Southern Colorado — the organization he established in 1989 with a single Kwanzaa celebration, now 38 years strong.

Dr. Young holds a Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Denver and is a 2000 graduate of the Colorado Springs Leadership Institute.

"Do your best and let God do the rest."

Schelle Nelson

President

Schelle Nelson is a registered nurse, food literacy leader, and wellness visionary whose work proves that healing the body and honoring the culture are the same work.

As President of the Kuumba Cultural Collective, she carries that conviction into a voluntary leadership role committed to celebrating and advancing African cultural heritage — rooted in the belief that culture strengthens identity, nourishes the mind and body, and unites communities. When individuals are educated, aligned, and empowered, they are better equipped to lead, build, and sustain what they've been given.

A military veteran, Schelle leads with purpose and integrity. She holds an ASN, a BSN, and a Bachelor's in Business with a focus in Technical Management — a blend of clinical expertise and entrepreneurial insight that allows her to bridge health, education, and community impact.

She is also the founder of NutriSchelle, a holistic nutrition and wellness platform that empowers individuals to transform their relationship with food through education, self-awareness, and intentional living. With over a decade of experience in nursing and fitness, she integrates science, culture, and holistic practice to guide others toward sustainable health and alignment.

For Schelle, the presidency is both an honor and a responsibility — to ensure that African culture, history, and values remain vibrant, accessible, and deeply respected for generations to come.

Christopher Tyrell Chin

Treasurer

Christopher Chin is a community builder, cultural strategist, and sovereign systems architect whose work sits at the intersection of ancestral wisdom and emerging technology.

Born and raised in Queens, New York to a Trinidadian American family, he grew up immersed in collective life — raised by his mother alongside his siblings and a large, close-knit extended family. He didn't learn the value of community from a book. He lived it. It wasn't until adulthood, watching people navigate the world without that foundation, that he understood just how rare it was.

Christopher finished his time in service at Ft. Carson and had every intention of moving on. Colorado Springs wasn't the plan. But when the mission of Kuumba Cultural Collective found him, it felt less like a decision and more like a recognition — the kind of alignment that doesn't ask for permission. A man rooted in purpose tends to find his people regardless of geography, and Kuumba became part of his.

Rooted in business, marketing, and U.S. Army Intelligence, he now works as an AI architect and founder of Urbane Solutions — designing AI-powered economic infrastructure for those who refuse to be left behind by the next technological revolution.