>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. >> My name is Laverne Page; I am an Area Specialist in the African & Middle Eastern Division at the Library of Congress. On behalf of my division we welcome you. We are happy to have worked with the Hispanic Cultural Society with the coordination of this event. Cultural societies and staff organizations at the Library of Congress like the Hispanic Cultural Society are vital to the staff since they provide outlets for staff interactions across library unit. Activities within these organizations allow us to learn brand new skills as well as to build upon what we already know. Within the library with its diverse staff, we have opportunities to conduct activities and to pursue our interests in our free time. In fact, the chief of my division is a published mystery writer and last week I met someone who has published 11 books during the time he's worked at the library. This is a place that nurtures talent and provides an outlet for incredible energy which then brings me to Jonathan French; intrepid Library of Congress cataloger by day and peripatetic (that means well-traveled) photographer by night. So many of us at LC know of Jonathan's works and because of what he's exhibited at the LCPA (Library of Congress Professional Association) annual Art Show, and Jonathan has hop-scotched across the globe. He travels everywhere. He returned from Uganda about two weeks ago; he exhibited works at the National Museum and the National Theater and Kampala [assumed spelling], the Capitol, and he has exhibited in many places in the U.S. such as here in Washington at the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival and he has exhibited in California, New York, Atlanta and his resume also includes places such as Paris, France, Havana, Cuba, Accra, Ghana where he shows and talks about his work. In Washington in 2006 and 2008 the DC Commission of the Arts granted him Fellowships to continue his work on his varied areas of interest. He is a self-taught photographer who has taken the role of photo documenting seriously since 1996. There's a lot that can be said about Jonathan's background and his work as you will see in the video of photos from treks to areas in the Caribbean and in South America. So I will conclude here by saying that. His photographs bring together the young, the old, the disadvantaged and the advantaged not to just freeze them in a frame, but to give them life. It is his idea to have his photographs help in the understanding of the subject, in their environment and lifestyle. Jonathan believes that photography is where one can preserve history, educate the general public, be a form for change and that's from a resume and introduction that someone else wrote so there are many of us that concur with that. And so now I would like to introduce you to Jonathan Bruce French. [ Applause ] >> Jonathan French: Thank you a lot for those comments. I would like to welcome the Ambassador from Nicaragua who I've met I think in 96 back in Costa Rica for the first time and I had the privilege of staying at his home in Blue Fields; so he just got his Ambassadorship in June so give him a welcome. [ Applause ] >> Jonathan French: As a matter of fact I think he may be the first Afro-Latino Ambassador to U.S. Now my work is concentrated on what is dear and close to me every day of my life and that's being of black heritage. In the early 1980's I first went to Senegal to the Door of No Return, and there I saw many people coming through weeping and crying because of the pain that they no their ancestors had endured. But as I stood there I kind of felt proud because here I was one of the ancestors returning back; and they had persevered so much, so much inhumane treatment until they survived and I'm a witness of their survival. And standing in the door a friend of mine and I asked okay where did everyone go? So in 1996 I was at a black family reunion where Ambassador Campbell was, Chris Rodriguez and many other blacks, and John Hendrix Clark, those that are familiar with him who is an African Historian, he was there also. And at this point I met a lot of blacks from South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and I established a repoire with them so I could get a avelt [assumed spelling] going into these black communities. And I went in and I discovered the contributions they've made in various communities with the Garifunas, the Blacks in Columbia, and Peru, etc., etc., so I started documenting this. And as I said earlier I had met Dr. Clark in 96 and in 98 he died. And on his program he wrote these words that really touched my heart. He says, "My feet have felt the sands of many nations. I have drunk the water of many springs. I am old, older than the pyramids; I am older than the race that oppresses me. I will live on; I will outlive oppression, and I will outlive oppressors." And when I read these words I think of him and I think of the people that came through the door of no return and survived, and the determination that they have put as survival. And I also felt that for too long there has been wide, watery oceans that bare information about the connections of all the people that arrived in the Americas from Africa so I found it to be my duty to go out to get this information to compile it and to share it with everyone. Especially after looking at the 2000 Census and realizing that Hispanics were out-taking blacks; and I don't see us as a separate group but I can see us as a combination of working together and whatnot. I've spent my time compiling that and I think in the end it will open a dialogue between blacks and Hispanics. My presentation will begin at the door of no return and then I will basically go into the meeting with Dr. Clark. And in 1986 I spent two months living with the Carib Indians and living with them they taught me about the black Garifuna which I also traveled into Central America and I photographed them in Honduras, Guatemala, parts of Nicaragua, Belize [assumed spelling] etc. And I kind of documented their history of them being deported from St. Vincent into Honduras Roatan Islands and how they traveled through and they made settlements; and how they live there these days and a lot of money is made on their being there, their culture and their heritage, etc. And then I traveled, I'll show photographs from Blue Fields which maybe the Ambassador can enlighten you about the history of that area. And then I also had the opportunity to travel to Mexico where I had a chance to-- people that know or have studied maybe African-Mexicans are familiar with the name Bobby Vaughan who is a friend of mine; he's an anthropologist who did a lot of study on the Afro-Mexicans there. And to go through all of this and see there are so many blacks in so many different areas, it was kind of remarkable. And it's not like the newly discovered. I wanted to use a song in my presentation that Roberta Flack sang back in-- her first album which I forget was in the late 60's or early 70's and it's called Angelitos Negros. And I didn't know what the words meant so I started researching the words and I'm going to show you a clip of Eartha Kitt singing this. Now I showed you this and this was taken from a film that was made in Mexico in 1948 and I don't know how many of you remember the movie called Imitation of Life. It was basically very similar to that. Now I'm going to show you another clip from the movie where the individual actually sings the song from the movie. I'm going to read you a review that was written about this. Angelitos Negros first exhibits the ideological contradiction typical of melodrama. Ana Luisa teaches a lesson against racism confirming the Mexican national character mobilized around hybriety [assumed spelling] after all the fundamental anti-races. Yet it reinforces the structure of the racial secret which consists with notions of hyper descent inevitably betrays the black body. The narrative also invokes the legacy of race, shame and an instrument of self-portrayal basic to their operations or racial secrets. That was written a long time ago. I'm going to now show you some of the works I've taken in various countries. We're going to start out at the Door of No Return. [ Music ] [ Applause ] >> Jonathan French: I'd like to conclude that I also went to Argentina and I went to Recoleta Cemetery where Eva Peron is buried and they handed me a program and let me read it. I asked them where is the black boy buried. And they couldn't tell me because they said they reburied him but they don't know where they put him. And this is to say that this is one reason why I started documenting the black history in South America because we'll disappear just like he did. That concludes my part. I'd like to now introduce Chris Rodriguez. Chris is currently employed by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. He's an Afro-Puerto Rican and Mr. Rodriguez has presented several papers at D.C. Latino Task Forces for Civil Rights hearings on race relations. He has appeared on many radio and television programs in the Washington Metropolitan area, addressed in the interest of race in the Latino community. He has also authored a book, the Latino Manifesto, a critique of the race debate in the U.S. Latin community. Chris. [ Applause ] >> Chris Rodriguez: I'm going to make this present very brief because we call came here to hear the Ambassador. But as a lead-in to what the Ambassador may have to say let me give you a little background on myself. Again my name is Chris Rodriguez and I'm not here representing the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security. I am not here representing them. This is part of my work that I do as a labor of love. And as a matter of fact I saw quite a few-- I really want to applaud Jonathan for the work that he's done and the important work that he's doing in documenting these things that-- this living population in Latin America where the African culture is alive and well in many ways; and we are beginning to see some semblance of a black consciousness that's occurring throughout Latin America. And it's important to highlight that because there are organizations that you will not hear in a mainstream media about the type of civil rights engagements that are occurring in different countries throughout Latin America. And they are at a level in many instances when you look back at the old footage of Dr. King and the times when folks were organizing here in the United States. Many movements that are occurring throughout Latin America are at that level and people are fighting for integration into education, into access to developing monies into bringing basic services to their communities. You know one of the running jokes down in Latin America is that wherever the road ends, the development road ends that's where the black community begins. And it's a very important thing to note that that's beginning to change in this process once people become aware and conscious of themselves as communities and reconnecting with their African consciousness; and I think this is a very important place for that. Just to give you a little background on myself, I grew up in New York City in Harlem, New York, not in the imbotial [assumed spelling] okay I grew up on the West side of Harlem right around the corner from the Apollo theater; and growing up in that area had a deep affect on my own psyche as far as my developing into adulthood. And what I saw growing up during the civil rights movements, I lived through the Harlem riots, I saw what segregation or remnants of the segregation was all about at the time and even how my family ended up in a public housing project at the time was an interesting story in itself; because as a Puerto Rican family we were moved into a predominantly African American Housing Project because of the regulations that they had at the time they weren't really integrating projects. And so we ended up somehow in this housing project and in effect it really shaped my whole way of looking at the world. As a result I've gotten into discussions with quite a few of colleagues of mine who we've gotten into with regards to the question of race in the Latino community. And one of the things that we have to realize is that in the Americas there are approximately 100 million people of African descent throughout the Americas. We're talking about a comparison to a 32 million here in the United States; we're talking about a huge population that exists outside of the U.S. boundaries. We talk about migration, talk about my job in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection but you see the migration, sometimes almost the second door of no return; there are people from Latin American that are moving here and living in different communities who are from African descent and they're not counted and they are invisible in this country. So this is an important piece I just wanted to raise to you. The other thing is the whole consciousness issue in the United States is so vastly, well not vastly different but there are different philosophies at looking at race when you have like the one drop rule here in the United States, where if you're one drop black bloody you're automatically categorized into the African American category okay? And Latin America is almost the reverse. The experience, the historical experience in that what's called mesti siad [assumed spelling] which was in essence the issue of lightening up the races so that the more successful you became the greater access you had to benefits within the Latin American society. So in essence say for instance if you go to a place like Brazil or you go to a place like Puerto Rico, there may be four, fix, six, ten names for the word black okay? And there's that whole color hierarchy system that exists. For example, when I look at the Census statistics in Puerto Rico it was very interesting 80% of the people of Puerto Rico self-identify themselves as white. And I thought that was very interesting because of the educational process; but if you look at the African presence in Puerto Rico and you see the music, the culture, even the way we speak Spanish, I call it-- it's just Puerto Rican Ebonics. That's all it is on the street levels. We speak Spanish with an intonation that is clearly very African; and if you look at our foods it is very different than it would be from say for instance a place like Mexico or Central America. In the Caribbean the foods are very close. I've gone to Nigerian exhibits when they've had African festivals here and I was looking at it they were frying Plantains just the way we do at home okay and so forth. So these are little things that we see that are the connections here between people. But there's a whole process that people are going through now. And in my book I try to examine what's going to happen in that process. Is there going to be a redefinition of black in this country? Okay? We have a whole migration of Africans coming into this country; we've got people from Latin America of African descent coming into this county that never had that civil rights experience or never had that connection to that historical experience here in the United States. We've got people coming in from Haiti, all types of places. So it's very interesting what the political ramifications of that is going to be; and even within the Hispanic community there are-- the recognition of our own black populations are really very rarely recognized. They are beginning to, you see in some of our national conferences, there are workshops addressing the issue of race and the Latino community's beginning to grapple with that. Because if you look at the politics now and what's happening throughout the country, there's the element of race that's attached to that. There's no question with the connection here and what the history of this country, the foundation of this country was all about. So I'm going to end my presentation here and allow the Ambassador to come up and speak and share his perspective and his new-- as a matter of fact I have great admiration for the Ambassador because he's been one of the major people-- and he's not only limited to Nicaragua. This man is an international force in black communities throughout Latin America. And he was matter of fact one of the first elected officials-- black elected officials in Latin America and so it's an honor for me at least to be here and sharing space with him. So thank you very much. [ Applause ] >> Well I hope I won't disappoint you all by being the next person up. I'm Angela Kinney and I'm Chief of the African Latin American Western European Division; we call it ALAWE for short. I first want to thank Derek Evans, President of the Hispanic Cultural Society and Laverne Pate from the African & Middle Eastern Division which I always mix up with my division for making this day happen. Thank you Jonathan for your beautiful photos and for opening our eyes to the presence of African culture throughout the world. I happen to work with Jonathan in ALAWE and I can tell you from knowing him for many years that Jonathan is as productive in his work as he is in his photography. I don't know how he fits in time to do it but thank you so much. I really enjoyed all the music that went along with your beautiful photographs. But I'm here to introduce His Excellency the Ambassador of Nicaragua, and thank you so much for coming to the Library of Congress. Welcome to you and to your lovely wife, Miriam, for coming here. I know the Ambassador and his wife are used to coming to government buildings because they completely bypassed Georgette Dorn who was downstairs waiting for them and they made their way up here to the Pickford Room; so thank you so much for making your way up here so easily. His Excellency Francisco Obadiah [assumed spelling] and I told him I would not say his middle name; Campbell Hooker, he became the Ambassador of Nicaragua to the United States on June 23, 2010, congratulations. Mr. Ambassador is well known to the U.S. Nicaraguan society, Solidarity Movement, due to his work in the Nicaraguan Embassy in Washington during the early 1980's. His Excellency was named by President Daniel Ortega as Nicaragua's Ambassador to the United States. He's currently an elected Sandinista member from Nicaragua in the Central America Parliament. He has previously served as Nicaragua's Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Angola and Tanzania. His Excellency has an undergraduate and a Master's Degree in Political Science at the University of Hawaii and has done advanced studies in Japan and in the U.S. He occupies the post previously held by Arturo Cruz who resigned as Ambassador to return to teaching in Managua over a year ago. Mr. Ambassador Campbell has announced that the government of Nicaragua is interested in improving relations with the United States, and would like to work within a context of mutual respect. His Excellency stated that President Obama is currently in agreement with working toward that goal as well. President Obama is committed to better relations between the Nicaraguan government and added also that between two Hawaiians-- his excellent went to school in Hawaii and of course we know that the President has grown up in Hawaii, that they can definitely meet that goal. Again I welcome His Excellency and his wife to the Library of Congress. It is my distinct pleasure to say welcome to you and please come on up to the podium to give us a few words. [ Applause ] >> Ambassador Campbell: Thank you very much. I'm grateful for this invitation to be here. I also want to thank Chris Rodriguez for his kind It is customary when an Ambassador arrives at the new post that he calls on Ambassadors who are in the post before. I called on the Ambassador from Barbados and we arranged for me to meet him at his office, and when I went in he looked at me strange but anyway, "Hello Mr. Ambassador come on in." And we began to talk and he said, "Wait a minute; you are the Ambassador from Nicaragua." I said, "Yes." "Why in the world would Nicaragua send a West Indian as Ambassador?" The same thing happened when I called and the Lady Ambassador from St. Vincent. She said, "You look like a long lost brother; we didn't know that Nicaragua had Afro descendent, we didn't know that Nicaragua had West Indian." And I explained to her that Central America in reality is the Western rim of the Caribbean, from Belize through Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, even as far as Columbia and Venezuela as well. You have a strong and vibrant Afro Caribbean presence. In the case of Nicaragua, we are unique in a sense. We are the only country in Central America that was colonized by two powers-- the Spanish on the Western side and the Caribbean side where I am from-- I'm from Blue Fields as Jonathan pointed out. That region was colonized by Great Britain and we had a very strong relationship with the countries and island of the Caribbean. In fact, during the Protectorate period under the British rule, the Kings from the Caribbean Coast were crowned in Kingston. And the African descendant population that evolved on the Caribbean Coast and which became very, very influential in the region have strong links to the various countries and islands of the Caribbean; and that explains why on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua you find that we speak English; the Afro Caribbean people speak English. We are also more identified with the Protestant denominations unlike the Pacific side of Nicaragua that was colonized by Spain. There, the predominant population makeup is Mestizo as Chris pointed out; and Mestizo is a mixture of European and indigenous population. They speak mostly Spanish and by in large they are identified with the Catholic religion. And that situation in Nicaragua lasted for almost 200 years until in 1894 when the Pacific side was finally able to annex the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. And the image that was projected of Nicaragua, the dominant image that was projected of Nicaragua, was a country that is Spanish speaking, Catholic and mostly identified with the Mestizo population. That was the image that Nicaragua projected to the world and that explains why my colleague from the Embassy of Barbados was so surprised to see an Afro descendant as the Nicaraguan Ambassador. And also it explains why my colleague from St. Vincent had the same reaction. Beginning in 1894 however, the government of Nicaragua went through a process whereby the Constitution of the country was changed. An autonomy law was promulgated and the Nicaraguan Constitution of 1987 stated clearly and categorically that Nicaraguan is a multiethnic, multicultural society. We left behind the notion that Nicaragua was Mestizo Spanish-speaking Catholic and began to project to the world the true makeup of Nicaragua's identify as a multiethnic, multicultural company. Indeed Nicaragua was the first country in Latin America that made that statement that recognized its multicultural, multiethnic heritage. And we are now in the process of strengthening that identity in the region. Chris was talking about the recognition of our Afro descendant heritage. I remember in the run-up to the United Nations Conference on Racism which was held in South Africa, there was a big debate among Afro Latin Americans at the time as to who and how can we really facilitate our people being able to overcome exclusion and invisibility. One of the problems we found was that a number of our people, very, very fair skin found it very difficult to identify as black because it seemed absurd for a person who is very, very fair even close to white, with the hair also being that as a white person for that person to say I am black. It seems so strange and we grappled with that and finally we came up with the concept of Afro descendant. And we discovered that by saying Afro descendant we allowed the individual to assert his black identity without having to go through that process of explaining yes I am black and the reason I am black is because my great, great grandmother was black. They just said I want to assert my identity as an Afro descendant and I believe that was one of the outstanding achievements that we were able to come up with this way for an individual to identify themselves through what they really felt and what they truly identified with; and that allowed others to tell them what they are or what they should be. We believe that that was a very important achievement. On the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua we are working very hard to strengthen that sense of pride, that identity to build on the achievement that we have acquired so far. I am pleased and proud to share with you for example that we on the Caribbean Coast Afro descendant, we have never been more than 10% of the population. Yet, we have been successful in creating some of the most important institutions in the region. We succeeded in building two universities on the Caribbean Coast. One is called University of the Autonomous Regions of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, and the other is called the Blue Fields Indian Caribbean University. Each one of these institutions have the responsibility of instilling pride of our Afro descendant heritage and instilling in our people that they have the responsibility, they have the duty to build a society that is multiethnic, multicultural and in which each group regardless of their ethnic background have the right to participate, have the right to become actors, have the right to build the kind of society that responds to the hopes and the dreams and aspirations of our people. We have Afro descendants that occupy important positions at all levels of government, we have Afro descendants who have been successful in business, we have Afro descendants who are all over the world; Afro descendants from all regions you can find them in the United States, you can find them in Europe, you can find them all over. We are busy building a society that responds to the hopes, the dreams and the aspirations of our people. And we were very proud to have Jonathan visit with us there on the Caribbean Coast. We have many challenges ahead but we are convinced that in working together in building that sense of dignity, that sense of pride, we can build on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua a society that as I said earlier, that responds to the hopes, the dreams, and the ideals of all our people in that region of the world. So thank you once again Jonathan for your kind invitation. While I am here in Washington as I said to President Obama and he also said to me, "We have the responsibility of building a better relationship between Nicaragua and the United States." We have never had what I would refer to as a mature relationship between Nicaragua and the U.S. and I believe now we have a unique opportunity and we are community toward that goal. That is the mission I have and I am very pleased to say to you that of all the officials, that each and every official of the United States that I have met so far in the Obama Administration, I identify that they too are committed to working in the direction of a mutually, respectfully and beneficial relationship between our two peoples and governments. So thank you very much and I look forward to working with you in the future. [ Applause ] >> We have a few minutes if there is anyone that would like to ask a question of the Ambassador? Yes? >> Audience question: My name is John Jackson. I just want to ask the Ambassador that next year has been declared by United Nations as Afro Descendants year. Will you comment on that what programs are available? >> Ambassador Campbell: Well I know that the United Nations in fact made the proclamations. There are a number of activities that are being planned. I don't know the details about the various programs but I do know the Central American Black Organization is involved in planning of the various activities running up to the celebration next year. In fact in Managua next month, there is a planning meeting. The President of the Central American Black Organization happens to be in Nicaragua' a man by the name of Sydney Francis, and they are in fact organizing an activity in Managua sometime this month to begin to work on all of the planning of the activities that they expect to carry out there next year. [ Inaudible audience question ] >> Ambassador Campbell: Well I am open to any and all ideas. I believe it is very important that we work together, that we find ways of being helpful to each other in the Nicaraguan Embassy, and the West Indian Ambassador is open to sitting down and talking with you and being willing to be of assistance and to work together in anything that helps to bring our people together; so if you have an idea or you want to plan an activity and you feel that you would like to have it at our Embassy, just get in touch with us and we can work it out. You want to add something? >> Audience question: Thank you Jonathan also. But this is a question that's close to my heart when he asks about the next year being declared by the United Nations of the year of Afro Descendants. I know that two years ago the United Nations approved the Declaration and Indigenous People's rights and while they say that under the word indigenous they include African descendants, the fact that is that when you say indigenous especially in Latin America, you are usually considering it the [inaudible] population and so we were saying that we told them in various meetings that it was important not only because of that question, but also because the reality of Afro descendants' peoples and also their historic reality in the Americas is very different from the indigenous people. So it was important in order to combat invisibility that declaration and the rights of Afro descendant people be approved by the United Nations, and also be considered by the Organization of American States; and that is I think one of the most important things around which we can unite in efforts to get that Declaration approved because so far the United Nations has always said we have done it already by improving the indigenous declaration and I think now In 2011 we should take advantage of this opportunity so that we can get this declaration approved that states specifically recognize the rights of Afro descendant people in the Americas. to ask has there been any improvement regards to Afro descendant non-government organizations, non-profit organizations to be able to access development monies directly, let's say like with the International Development Bank, the World Bank. Are they given direct access or are they still going through their own government structures to... >> Ambassador Campbell: Well I can tell you about our experience. In building the two universities that I mentioned early, we did it without initial government support. We were able to obtain financing from different organizations here in the United States; and later on we were able to get funding from Norwegian institutions, Swedish, British, Austrian, Spain, that's in the case of the universities. Miriam is the head or was the head of the Center for Human Civil and Autonomous Rights on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. It works mainly with-- primarily rather with Afro descendants but in a multicultural setting, and Seneca [phonetic spelling] has received funding from European sources, from Canada, from the United States, from Taiwan. And so in our experience we have been able to access directly funding from various countries and various institutions all over the world. >> Ambassador Campbell: But I wanted to touch on that part about the United States because in order to get started in the building of the university, the Orecan [phonetic spelling], it was a black American pastor; he died recently-- Lucius Walker. He was head of Pastors for Peace and it was with the support of Pastors for Peace and its vast network across the United States that we were able to get the university off the ground. That's a direct example of how successful people to people work, can be so invaluable. And I wanted to mention it because Lucius Walker, an outstanding friend of Nicaragua, an outstanding friend of Cuba, he died about a month ago. But he leaves behind a tremendous example and a tremendous legacy that is greatly admired and respected both in Nicaragua and in Cuba. >> Audience question: Is he a black pastor? >> Ambassador Campbell? He's a black pastor, yes Lucius Walker. [ Inaudible audience question ] >> Ambassador Campbell: As I said earlier we have never been more than 10% of the Nicaraguan population, yet on the Caribbean Coast, the Afro descendant culture is the dominant culture. When Nicaraguans identify themselves as being from the Caribbean Coast or being a Costanoan, their point of reference to identify themselves as a Costanoan is to say that they like to eat Afro descendant cuisine, our music, our dance, and so the cultural heritage is very strong and I would say dominant. Our people always assign great importance; in fact I would say one of the key values of the Afro descendent community of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua is education. You had to go to school; you had to have an education. In fact in 1980, when the Revolution came to power and they decided that a literacy campaign was necessary in the country because the country as a whole had a literacy rate of approximately 65%, they had to do a Census to ascertain the level of literacy or illiteracy The country as a whole had a literacy rate as I said earlier of approximately 65%. Among the Afro descendant, it was .5% precisely because of that value that the Afro descendant community assigned to education. And so even though we are from the region of the country where you have high level of poverty, where you had high level of illiteracy, the Coastal population where you have the Afro descendant for historic reasons and in spite of the internal colonialism that the Pacific imposed on the Caribbean after the 1894 annexation, you still find that the Coastal Afro descendant population enjoy a relatively better living condition than the norm in the country as a whole. Well I thank you very much and the dialogue continues. [ Applause ] >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.