See various souvenirs from Africa celebrating Barack Obama 2008 win as U.S. president

The beginning of this collection was materials that Northwestern University graduate students acquired for us. And then I began to spread the word to Northwestern faculty traveling in Africa, to all of our different book dealers in Africa, and things just started arriving.

The beer bottle is a new brew of East African Breweries. So far as I know, it's widely available, but it's hard to get, because so many people are acquiring the bottles.

Everyone wants to know what this word means, unbwogable. Here it is as a headline. Unbwogable was a word that was made up by a Kenyan hip-hop group called Gidi Gidi Maji Magi. It started meaning unstoppable, invincible.

This shirt is from Tanzania. It has another Swahili phrase on the back, and this is "change you can believe in" in Swahili. Obama greeting cards, which are produced in Kenya. And this particular card is focused on a student about to take his exams, and the sort of exhortation on the inside of a card is for the student to work hard like Barack Obama did and excel.

This mask was acquired for us by Carolyn Bledsoe, professor of anthropology. It's not intended to look like Barack Obama. It's a mask carved in a classical, traditional manner. What is there is the symbolism of Obama and the intention of the man who created it.

We're looking to regroup and let the collection grow, and in 2010, have a major exhibit. This has been a very collaborative effort and will continue to be.