Americans don’t spend enough on foreign aid and don’t teach their children enough about foreign countries, a former U.S. ambassador said Thursday.

Delano Lewis, ambassador to South Africa from 1999 to 2001, spoke to about 500 black high school students at Kansas University’s 17th annual Black Leadership Symposium.

“It’s a shame our schools don’t teach enough about that continent,” he said. “We’re ignorant of Africa.”

Lewis, who was born in Arkansas City and grew up in Kansas City, Kan., received degrees in political science and history from KU in 1960. He also was president and CEO of National Public Radio from 1993 to 1998.

Lewis told the students the United States also could be doing more to help some countries financially. He said the United States spent $50 million in foreign aid to South Africa his final year as ambassador, compared to $3 billion in Israel.

“That is peanuts in a country of 44 million people,” he said. “That goes nowhere.”

Lewis urged students to learn more about other countries and to consider careers in foreign service.

“We’re fearful of the things we don’t know,” he said. “That’s why we’re in the mess we’re in in the Middle East. That’s why we’re in the mess we’re in in foreign relations.”

He said the Sept. 11 attacks had made the Bush administration rethink the U.S. philosophy on foreign relations.

“It did make us wake up that we cannot go it alone, that we need to have a good sense of other cultures and other people, and we need to have a good sense of why some people don’t like us,” he said.

Asked if he supported war with Iraq, Lewis said: “I haven’t been convinced we should go to war against Iraq. I don’t think the case is there. I haven’t been convinced the evidence is there.”

Symposium participants spent the rest of the day hearing from experts on international education, college preparation and leadership skills.

Greg Foster, a senior from Junction City, said the event was inspiring.

“I really enjoyed the (Lewis’) speech about how African-Americans should help ourselves instead of relying on others to help us,” Foster said.

And, he said, he appreciated being around other students like him. To qualify for the symposium, students had to have a 3.25 grade-point average and exhibit leadership potential.

“As African-American people in Kansas, we feel so dispersed,” Foster said. “I feel pretty much at home here.”