On the road in Brazil
Salvador da Bahia, Brazil - I've spent the last couple of days here in Salvador, on the north-east coast of Brazil, a city that's about as African as you can get without crossing to the other side of the Atlantic.
Why? Well, because something like 80 per cent of the people who live here claim at least some African ancestry, dating back to the days when the Portuguese colonialists shipped an estimated three million slaves across the ocean from west Africa to work on cotton, tobacco and sugar plantations.
Today, Salvador is the centre of Afro-Brazilian culture. The narrow cobbled streets of the historic centre may be lined with magnificent Portuguese colonial architecture (it was Brazil's capital from the 16th to 18th centuries), but the city throbs to the sound of Africa.
At the cultural centre, I met its president Joao Jorge, a dreadlocked Afro-Brazilian lawyer who's now standing as a candidate for the State senate. He tells me he's a proud Brazilian, but that Brazil's record on guaranteeing equality for its non-white citizens is no better than any other country's. (About half the population of 190 million are classified as either black or mixed race.)
My reports from Brazil will be running on The World Tonight and Newshour later in the week.
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