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Every once in a while, there's a convergence of histories so eye-opening and timely that it defies the imagination. And so it was for those of us who had the good fortune to attend the opening of "The African Presence in Mexico: From Yanga to the Present" last Friday at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.

That convergence - namely, two racial groups, Hispanics and blacks, that have made an art of warily circling each other in this state - made for an event that was not so much about what was hung on the walls, but who was watching.

Harold Bailey, executive director for the New Mexico Office of African-American Affairs, has been through the show three times already, speaking on one occasion.

While it's easy to grasp the importance of understanding the relationship between those of African and Mexican descent, Bailey sees a bigger opportunity for New Mexico from the exhibit.

"The bigger piece is for us to work in concert to combat the problems we all face as minorities," he said. "The exhibition can be a catalyst. We need to take off from this moment, find common problems and come up with a strategy."

Africans first arrived in Mexico in 1519. A whole lot has happened since.

Known as "the third root," the African legacy in Mexico continues to this day, mainly in the Veracruz and Costa Chica areas, formerly the slave-trade ports.

But it took until 1992 for Mexico to officially recognize that third root. It was so buried for so long.

I very much respect what Eduardo Diaz, executive director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center, has done. Not just in bringing the show here, but in making sure black people in the city had a hand in its execution, including a special exhibit regarding blacks in New Mexico.

Called "New Mexico's African American Legacy: Visible, Vital, Valuable," it's curated by Rita Powdrell and Brenda Dabny. Located down the hall from the main exhibit, it creates a symmetry regarding the African experience that informs and empowers both exhibits.

"We did (New Mexican) oral histories and a strong theme running through them was a fear of appearing too successful, because something would occur," says Powdrell. "It's part of our biblical language: the pride before the fall."

Powdrell sees in the American- and Mexican-African experiences a connection between the demise of successful black townships in America following the Civil War and the story of Yanga, an African who founded the first free African township in Mexico in 1609.

So successful was the colony, in the hills inland from Veracruz, that it drew vast numbers of runaway slaves, who uprooted the economic balance in the region. The viceroy had to negotiate terms with Yanga, so impactful was his uprising.

The military eventually prevailed when Yanga was an elder and no longer had the fight in him. There's a statue of him in Veracruz now, and it serves as a tribute to a very early civil-rights struggle.

What we can learn through this show, which killed in Chicago last year and recently finished a run in Mexico, is that Africans have had a long history there that's been kept at arm's length from both Mexicans and black Americans.

If, in some circles, the rap on the Hispanic Cultural Center has been about it's being a closed shop, a jewel-box for the culturally privileged, this show knocks the stuffing out of it.

These exhibits have as much to say about our state as they do about Mexico.

More than 100 years ago, Mexican Dictator Porfirio Diaz famously quipped, "Poor Mexico. So far from God, and so close to the United States." It's a familiar phrase to the point of cliché, but for New Mexicans of all heritages, this show stunningly reveals that some of us are closer to Mexico in a way we couldn't imagine.