• By Dr An Activist.

By Dr An Activist.

How are you? I am weary. I spent the night with the students at the State University of Rio De Janeiro. Specifically, I was with about sixty students from the University's African Student Organization and a number of sisters and brothers from Rio's numerous Black communities.

Here is what happened: to begin with, I have a passion for African students at universities. Tuesday morning I did a big presentation at the Pan-African conference that I spoke at but in spite of the fact that the conference took place at the University there were only a few students in attendance. And this is a large and prestigious university--with more than twenty thousand students. So after the talk, which went very, very well, I made it a point to mention to the few students in attendance that I would like to do a special presentation just for them. They responded most enthusiastically and I was extremely pleased. I think that they felt that most of the speakers at the Conference were basically a group of dedicated academicians determined to talk only to ourselves.

It was decided that the meeting with the students would take place on campus Friday evening at 5:00 pm. The problem was finding a suitable translator. I don't speak Portuguese and very few of the students spoke more than a couple of words of Engliah. Since the students that I talked to were African I wanted the translator to be African. But all of my efforts to get a translator met with little more than frustration and I could find nobody.

So, late this afternoon, after a long meeting this morning and an afternoon visit to the National Museum, I just gave up. I ordered some room service and went to bed before dark! I felt bad about not honoring my promise to the students. I was down and discouraged and thinking that this would probably be my last visit to Brazil.

Sisters and brothers, I fell asleep and dreamed about my mother--who passed last January. We had a very close relationship, my mother and I. I miss her a lot and I notice several times now during the course of my recent travels that when I am feeling distraught she appears in my dreams. She was very proud me and I believe that she is watching over me.

Sure enough, right in the middle of the dream, my phone rang. It was one of the students at the University asking me if I had forgotten the meeting. The phone suddenly went dead and I thought that it might have been a only a part of the dream. But a few minutes later the phone rang again. It was another student. In broken English he told me that there were twenty students waiting to meet with me. I told them that the problem was that I could not find a translator and they told me that they had found a brother that would do it, and was I still interested? I told him that I was and they replied that a delegation of students would arrive in a taxi to pick me up at my hotel in thirty minutes. It was about 6:30 pm.

They were men of their word. I confess that several taxis refused to pick up three Black men but eventually we got one and arrived at the University thirty minutes later. By this time it was about 7:30 pm and the students were still there--and they were all African! And they kept coming! The room got full and I'd say that about sixty students eventually made their way to the gathering. I was really impressed. These young people were hungry for knowledge of self. And joining us were several people from the community. Everybody was Black, there was a good balance between men and women, and they all seemed absolutely delighted with the program. And I was delighted with the way things were turning out. I did not get paid a dime for the talk but this is what I live for! Perhaps I will get my reward in heaven!

One of the students introduced me and I gave an overview of African history and the global African presence. Then I opened the floor up for questions and they responded with a wide range of really intelligent and well thought out queries. They asked me about the importance of history, the use of the terms Black and African, the status of African women scholars in the United States, my opinion of Barack Obama, how African women wore their hair in antiquity, etc., etc., etc. By this time it was almost 9:30 pm and we were still going strong. Then I turned the table on them and started asking them questions, and the energy level in the room rose dramatically!

I asked them about life for Black people in Brazil, about the numbers of African men incarcerated in Brazil, about life in the favelas (Brazil's impoverished Black communities), about life for Black women in Brazil, about their feelings for the African soccer players from Brazil, about the significance of skin color in the African communities in Brazil, about the Black people in Brazil that they most admired. about employment opportunities for them, about police brutality in Brazil, etc., etc., etc.

By 11:30 pm we were forced to quit as the University was closing. Otherwise, we would probably still be there! It was incredible! I heard a lot of life stories and got oh so much information. Both students and community folk alike seemed enamored by the fact that I had gone out of my way to spend time with them, that I seemed genuinely interested in them, and that I was willing to patiently listen to their concerns. It was powerful sisters and brothers! And I promised them that I would return to them one day if they really needed me.

After it was all over we took a bunch of photos and they insisted on escorting me back to my hotel in another taxi. Two brothers came to pick me up to take me to the University and two sisters escorted me back to my hotel from the University. These were some really, really nice young people.

Early on the students made it clear to me that there was a real deficit of African-centered educational materials available to them and so I rewarded them with several DVDS on global African history and the African presence in Asia, cds of Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey speeches, three of my small travel books, and a few photos of the Black Christ that I photographed in Egypa. I was happy to do it. It was that kind of night.

So I am back in my hotel room completely exhausted. It is now well after two o'clock am but I had to share these notes with you. Tomorrow, before I leave Rio, some of the students are supposed to take me to at least one of Rio's 350 favelas. Right now I am going to try to get some sleep.