We got an early start in marking Martin Luther King day this year. There was great interest in our 2011 screening of Freedom Riders, so we decided that an encore was due for those who missed Stanley Nelson's award-winning documentary.
Our monthly "Movie Night" had an added come-on: distribution of the excellent State Department publication "Free at Last," along with its Arabic and French translations.
We would have wanted more young Moroccans to show up, but as it was, we had an appreciative audience, some of whom said that this should become an annual event. That's fine with us.
There is great interest in Morocco in this chapter of American history, and some participants noted that Morocco has far to go in its treatment of, for example, sub-Saharan Africans who wind up in Morocco in their attempt to cross the Strait of Gibraltar.
We plan to carry other stories that touch on the African American experience, especially as it concerns Morocco. The Prince Among Slaves continues to fascinate, and we will soon post a piece about black American soldiers in Operation Torch, the Allied landings in North Africa in 1942. And of course, maybe America's first African American President might be persuaded to head the US delegation to Tangier in 2021 for the bicentennial of the Legation! We'll keep trying to plant the idea…
Gerald Loftus
