Promoting multi-culturalism and using their facilities to improve race relations, whether it be through books or artwork, are what head librarian at the Bermuda Junior Library Mrs. Florenz Maxwell and the Bermuda National Gallery have in common.

The person and the institution were both presented with awards from the National Association of Reconciliation in honour of their positive strides towards bringing the races together.

The NAR has as its sole objective ensuring that race relations is on the national agenda, especially in Bermuda where "the barriers of understanding between the races are almost impenetrable, and any effort made towards improving the relations is worthy of note,'' co-founder of NAR Dr. Eva Hodgson noted.

Mrs. Maxwell, head librarian at the Bermuda Junior Library, made it her job to help stamp out books that portrayed blacks as "golliwogs'' and "sambos''.

Illustrators' and authors' portrayals of blacks in this way, she says, is "one of the reasons blacks have such low self-esteem.'' "For years I have been concerned with derogatory types of books circulating because they did not present black children in a particularly natural way,'' Mrs. Maxwell said.

She added: "When some of the books were banned, such as Huckleberry Finn and Uncle Sam, a few people got up in arms because they thought they were classics but, they had a subliminal message and they destroyed black and white children.'' Mrs. Maxwell said she serves as a member of the task force on the Correta Scott King Committee, which is part of the American Library Association Conference helping to push for the honouring of black authors and illustrators. "This also helped me to get many of the outstanding books written and illustrated by blacks.

"It is important to have these types of books because I see the damage that the other books, that depicted blacks in a negative way, did to children.

"The books helped black people not to appreciate themselves, causing their self-esteem to be damaged, which I believe is three-quarters of the reason why we have the problems we see today.'' Thankfully, Mrs. Maxwell said, there are very few authors and illustrators that "dare to portray black children as they used to do.'' And she said that now and then she still has to check the messages and the tone in some of the books that come to the library.

Because of the messages that used to be so prevalent in literature, Mrs.

Maxwell said that whenever she has the chance she gives affirmation to the black child.

"All children are important to me but I am aware of what happened to the black child, and just because of that it does not mean that I am ignoring children of other cultures.'' Mrs. Maxwell added that she was thrilled to be a recipient of the NAR award.

Director of the Bermuda National Gallery Mrs. Gorham said that since the gallery opened it had had a firm commitment towards education and bringing the community together.

"We have offered varying exhibitions such as, the African show "Secrecy'', Richard Saunders, Bill Ming, and the Carib Art exhibition, which are of interest to many different parts of the community,'' Mrs. Gorham said. She added that the gallery looked at the make-up of the community and their varying interests when deciding what exhibitions to offer.

"The art that we have in the gallery is for everyone. Every school child, every member of the community, from our major sponsors to an array of different types of people all ages, colours, creeds, and backgrounds.

"Everyone has interest in the gallery and what we are doing for the community.'' "We are proud that a lot of our exhibitions have encouraged school children to come out -- one of which was the African show.

"Eighty-five percent of Bermuda's school children came to that exhibition which allowed them to look at other cultures. They were also able to see how someone thinks and lives.

"We believe that if students can understand and respect other people's way of thinking when it comes to art then maybe it will lead to them accepting others, no matter what race they are,'' Mrs. Gorham said.