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A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since August, 1936. I have continued my study of anthropology over the years-in England, in Russia, and now here in America at the Hartford Seminary Foundation.  
In Russia I was excited and profoundly moved to see for myself how the so-called "backward," "primitive" people from the formerly remove wastes of Siberia and Asia have been stepped up to active and constructive participation in a highly industrialized modern state.  The Institute of Minorities in Leningrad is a place to visit, study, and revisit.  
Today the question of Africa is even more interesting, exciting, and pressing than heretofore.  Africa has a long last come into focus in world thinking.  The interest and attention of the world are now, reluctantly, directed toward that great continent.  The North African Campaign was crucial in the war.  That's where we got our toehold in this present march to victory.  Vitally important to supply bases, repair bases, airfields are in Africa.  Critical raw materials-rubber, essential alloys used in making steel, palm oil cotton, cocoa, radium come from Africa.  The Free French were given new life, hope and impetus because of the loyalty, courage and political astuteness of Felix Eboue, the black Governor of the Chad Region, in French Equatorial Africa.  International airdromes have been established at strategic points in North, West, Central and East Africa.  Dakar, Cairo, Brazzaville are know to millions of the newspaper, radio and film public.  Formerly remote Africa is right around the corner, by Plane.  But far more important than all this is the fact that for the first time since the penetration of Africa by the white man, the people of the world still have to consider the people of Africa. Until this war, the only people who were even vaguely aware of Africans as human beings were missionaries. Tourists, businessmen, government officials, and politicians-with few exceptions-considered the Africans (if they considered them at all) as savages, labor fodder, and pawns.  This war has changed all that.  The people of the world, in fighting for their own freedom, are come to long last to sense that no man can be free until all men are free.  Many people try to avoid facing this reality; many people are facing it reluctantly.
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Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-09 18:47:10