Colombia's black population is the second largest in Latin America and the third largest in the Americas. Ten million of the 45 million people in the country are estimated to be black. As in the rest of the region, the denominator negro has a long history. It is a label imposed onto a racialized group that is subalternized in relation to the dominant definition of national self as blanco-mestizo (Almario  
García, 2010; Chaves, 2009; Leal, 2010; Múnera, 2011). However, negro can also be a positive utterance of self-definition affirming a collective identity that constitutes an ethnic-racial difference on the national stage. Ethnic-racial denominations for people of African descent vary considerably in Colombia, a country of great regional diversity. However, the signifier negro and the more recent afrodescendiente have played important roles in creating languages of sameness and collective identity in the whole territory. ${ }^{26} \mathrm{~A}$ long tradition of poesía negra on the Caribbean coast of Colombia can be traced back to the poetry of Candelario Obeso in the late nineteenth century and to that of Jorge Artel since the 1930s. A historical landmark for the rise of Colombia as a bastion of Negritude was the Primer Congreso de la Cultura Negra de las Américas (First Congress of Black Culture in the Americas), held in Cali, Colombia, in 1977. This continental gathering brought together nationwide efforts for the recognition of black cultures and against racism, while placing Colombia at the centre of Afro-American political, cultural, and intellectual organizing. ${ }^{27}$