The month of February, which celebrates both Black History Month and Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, frequently prompts reflections on the great civil rights struggle in the United States. Leaders of the struggle and scholars who have studied it can debate the achievements to date and progress yet to be made. In some parts of the world, however, the movement has barely begun. Mauritania, a sparsely populated Saharan country on the coast of West Africa, is unknown to most Americans. It is there that, according to …