Obama, Shakira join forces at Colombian cultural event

 ENA, Colombia – Before leaving Colombia, President Obama spent some time with the people of Cartagena, participating in a cultural event to recognize the historically marginalized Afro-Colombian communities and to grant the descendents of slaves the formal title to their land.
“This a historic day, decades, even centuries in the making,” Obama said. “For generations many of you have lived on these lands, toiled these lands, raised your families on these lands and now, from this day forward, you will at long-last hold title to this land.”
Standing alongside President Santos of Colombia and singer Shakira in the Plaza de San Pedro, Obama reflected on his own ancestry.
“Early in my presidency, my family and I visited Ghana in West Africa and we visited the historic Cape Coast Castle and I’ll never forget my two young daughters, the descendents of Africans and African-Americans, looking out through the door of no return where so many Africans began their forced journey to this hemisphere,” he said.
“Today we gather in a port city where so many of those Africans arrived in chains,” he said. “Like their brothers and sisters in both our countries and across this hemisphere they endured unimaginable cruelty, but in their suffering, which revealed man’s capacity for evil, we also see the spirit of this day, man’s capacity for good, for perseverance, for healing, the belief that we can overcome.”
The United States has allocated $61 million to improve the quality of life in predominantly indigenous communities and provide support to Colombia’s land restitution efforts. The New Nation