There are many countries in the world people don’t often associate with Black African history but they should. In this series Africa Web TV takes you on a historical journey to highlight some of the places where you would least expect a strong African presence.
In this episode, we take you to Bolivia which currently has the last living African King, on the South American continent! His name is Julio Pinedo or King Pinedo the first (born 19 February 1942)
According to the latest Bolivian census in 2012, more than 23,000 people identify as Afro-Bolivians. But taking into account people of mixed backgrounds, that number is probably close to 100,000 in Bolivia and beyond. And while the Afro-Bolivian diaspora has spread all over the country and the world in the last few hundred years, its roots and its king are here in the Yungas.
Despite the Afro-Bolivian community fervently working to preserve their culture, many Afro-Bolivians have reported experiencing severe racism and feelings of isolation from society due to intolerance. Laws that actually criminalize racism and discrimination in Afro-Bolivia have slowly been ratified as the first anti-discriminatory law (law 45) was passed in 2010 and was met with violent protesting and rioting. In 2009 President Evo Morales added amendments to the national constitution that outlined the rights of Afro-Bolivians and guaranteed the protection of such liberties. The amendments also generally extended to indigenous peoples and officially recognized Afro-Bolivians as a minority group in Bolivia despite them not being included in the national census three years later. In addition to the country’s constitution being updated in 2009, President Morales created the Vice Ministry for Decolonization to create policies that criminalize racism while working to improve literacy and create better race relations in Bolivia.
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© Africa Web TV 2021
0:00 Intro
0:44 Africans of Bolivia
1:44 Bolivian people of African descent
2:36 How Africans came to Bolivia
3:24 African workers in the mines of Potosi
4:34 The Yungas
5:29 King Julio Pinedo The First
6:19 Outro
#AfroBolivians #AfricanHistory #Yungas