By Kari Mutu
In Summary
- A war of words was taking place between the US and British governments. “Even though the Lancaster House talks [for African Independence] were going on, London didn’t want Washington to meddle in one of their colonies,” explains Mrs Weiss.
- Nevertheless, 81 Kenyan students, including 13 women, were on the first chartered aircraft that arrived in New York City on September 11, 1959, destined for universities in America and Canada.
- Almost 800 students benefited from the airlifts.
- The airlifts ended in 1963. Since then, thousands of schools and universities have been established in East Africa. But some educationists in Kenya are concerned about the rapid evolution of new universities.
The night Kenya gained Independence from Britain in 1963 was
filled with exuberant dancing, singing and a brilliant display of
fireworks. But the celebrations did not hide the growing concern that
the handover of government needed qualified Africans ready to take over
positions previously held by British administrators.
During the colonial era, higher education was a pipe dream for
most Kenyans because the white settlers and missionaries preferred to
keep them “ignorant.” In his recent memoirs, Kitchen Toto to Ambassador,
retired ambassador Philip Gitonga writes: “African Christians did not
need further education. They only needed to know how to read the Bible
and become good artisans and clerks.”
In the 1950s, a few teaching and technical colleges offered
diploma courses to locals. A few Kenyans managed to get into
universities in South Africa, India and Britain.
Makerere University College in Uganda took in a limited number
of top students. “So those of us next in the ranks were finished. You
became a teacher or policeman, or you were employed by the railways or
post office,” says historian Mutu Gethoi, an airlift beneficiary who
graduated from the University of Michigan.
However, several hundred managed to overcome the odds in the
early 1960s and study at American universities in what became known as
the African Students Airlift to America.
Airlifts to the US
Prof Frederick Okatcha, a former lecturer in educational
psychology at the University of Nairobi, recalls: “The British were
spreading propaganda that American education was not good. It was not
true.” Okatcha was a mail clerk at the Ministry of Works in Kisumu
before he went for further studies.
The airlift was the brainchild of Tom Mboya, who worked as a
city sanitary inspector in Nairobi. He was also an active member of the
local workers’ union, through which he gained political prominence.
In 1955, Mboya attended Ruskin College in Oxford, England on a
British Labour Party education grant. He later tried getting similar
grants for other aspiring African leaders but the colonial government
was unreceptive. So Mboya turned west, to America.
Cora Weiss, 81, a human rights and peace activist from New York
city, remembers the genesis of the airlift programme. From 1959 to 1963,
Ms Weiss was the executive director of the African American Students
Foundation (AASF), the body that handled the American side of the
airlifts.
“It was the era of anti-colonialism, decolonisation, liberation
movements, and that’s where the action was in terms of international
human rights and civil rights,” says Ms Weiss.
Cora’s husband Peter Weiss was a founding member of the American
Committee on Africa (Acoa), an organisation established in 1953 to
lobby against colonialism and for African liberation movements.
At the invitation of Acoa, Mboya went on a speaking tour in
North America in 1959 and met with influential people such as Dr Martin
Luther King, musician Harry Belafonte, actor Sydney Poitier, sportsman
Jackie Robinson and Mrs Ruth Bunche, wife of the first African American
recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (1950).
The American civil rights movement had little to do with the
African liberation struggle. But Belafonte, Poitier, Robinson and others
in the AASF were part of a small group of Americans that, said
Belafonte in the forward to the book Airlift of America, by Tom
Shachtman, “understood that in post-colonial, independent Africa,
without education there could be no government, no democracy, and no
justice.”
Prior to 1959, Mboya had received some education funds from
Bill Scheinman, a millionaire American entrepreneur he had met on an
earlier labour union trip to the US.
“Scheinman’s accountant told him that he should start a
foundation so that he could deduct his grants to Tom,” says Mrs Weiss.
The AASF was formed by Scheineman, Belafonte, Robinson, Poitier, Mrs
Weiss, political activist Frank Montero, and renowned labour lawyer Ted
Kheel.
London didn’t want Washington meddling
Back in Kenya, Mboya connected with Dr Julius Kiano and Kariuki
Njiiri, both graduates of American universities, and together they
started identifying suitable candidates for the airlifts.
Cora Weiss flew to Kenya on several occasions to assist with
applications. Retired economics professor Joseph Maitha remembers that
Ernestine Hammond Kiano and Ruth Stutts Njiri also helped with student
processing.
Soon young Africans got wind of the Mboya-Kiano-Njiiri education
initiative. Lucy Kiilu was an untrained teacher when her former
schoolmate and fellow airlift beneficiary Regina Ndibo told her about
the programme. Miriam Chege applied for a Food Science degree through
the Nyeri Catholic Diocese. When Mutu Gethoi, a primary school teacher,
learnt that the headmaster had left to pursue further studies in
America, he followed suit the next year.
Meantime, a war of words was taking place between the US and
British governments. “Even though the Lancaster House talks [for African
Independence] were going on, London didn’t want Washington to meddle in
one of their colonies,” explains Mrs Weiss.
Some students received full American scholarships, but others
got partial grants and had to source for additional funds. “The only
thing the airlift committee guaranteed was the fare, one way,” says Prof
Maitha, an alumnus of the State University of New York.
Prof Okatcha, a PhD holder from Michigan State University,
received grants from the AASF, the African American Institute and the
Philip Stokes Fund. “Some were lucky and got more money, but others
really suffered,” says Okatcha.
Nevertheless, 81 Kenyan students, including 13 women, were on
the first chartered aircraft that arrived in New York City on September
11, 1959, destined for universities in America and Canada.
“Most of the students had never been on an airplane, had never
left Kenya. They had no idea what they were getting into, but they were
brave and adventurous and highly motivated,” Weiss says.
Barack Obama senior
One 1959 scholarship recipient was Pamela Odede, who later
became the wife of Tom Mboya. Another well-known student that year was
Barack Obama senior, father of US President Barack Obama, who joined the
University of Hawaii. Obama senior was not on the airlift list, but a
beneficiary of the goodwill of Americans towards African students,
obtaining funds through different private sources including the AASF.
For the 1960-61 academic year, AASF secured another 250
scholarships, but getting money for air transport proved difficult.
Several appeals to the US State Department and Vice President Richard
Nixon’s office had yielded nothing.
So, in July 1960, Mboya travelled to the US and, together with
Scheinman and Montero of AASF, met with the Senator John F Kennedy who
chaired the Senate subcommittee on Africa. Kennedy was impressed with
Mboya and keen to support the African liberation movement. Subsequently,
the Kennedy Foundation agreed to fund the entire 1960 airfare cost of
$100,000.
Bill Scheinman with students. PHOTO | COURTESY OF CORA WEISS
In September 1960, three planeloads of students flew to the
US. Okatcha, Gethoi, Ms Kiilu and Ms Chege boarded the last flight to
depart Nairobi. On board were students from Uganda, Tanganyika, Northern
Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland (present day Zambia, Zimbabwe
and Malawi.) One of the students that year was the late Prof Wangari
Maathai, the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The students stayed at the New Yorker Hotel in New York city
during their orientation, which included tours and welcome parties. They
were awed by television, hot dogs and white waiters in restaurants.
Civil rights movement
The 1960s was the height of the civil rights movement. For
African students, the racial experiences differed greatly between those
in the northern and the southern states.
Ms Ndibo and Ms Kiilu, two of only four black students at
Skidmore College in New York state, say they did not face racial
discrimination but recollect a curiosity among white students about
Africans. “They asked stupid questions like, how did you get here? How
do you feel wearing these Western clothes?” said Ms Kiilu, looking
bemused.
Prof Maitha, on the other hand, clearly remembers the
segregation of public facilities in the southern state of Arkansas. “The
restaurants were marked, ‘Whites Only’ and ‘Coloured’. The water
fountains were also marked,” he said.
Surprisingly, a good number of African students received
scholarships from states where segregation was deepest. “A few Christian
white schools in the south, which would not take African Americans,
would take in Africans because they wanted to show that they had foreign
students. But they treated the Africans terribly,” Prof Maitha added.
Prof Maitha became chairman of the Economics Department of the University College of Nairobi in 1969, a year after his return.
Ms Kiilu, an English Literature student, found that her level of
education was superior to that of her classmates. “In class, we would
do better than they would. They were shocked by how we could do better
than them in English.”
All students were required to raise their own pocket money.
“Mboya and Scheinman were adamant that this must be a self-help
enterprise and to satisfy US visa requirements, each had to raise $300,”
says Ms Weiss.
Returning home
At an exchange rate of Ksh7 to the dollar, Ksh21,000 far exceeded what most African families earned in a year.
Consequently, students worked at casual jobs in the long summer
holiday. Gethoi says he moonlighted anywhere, including selling ice
cream from a bicycle. Prof Maitha cleaned floors and cut grass at the
university during the semester to earn room and board.
Many students went on to post-graduate Masters and Doctorate
programmes that were not available in East Africa at the time. But the
home countries were also eager for them to return now that Independence
was imminent. “I had several job offers including from my own
university,” says Prof Maitha. “But I felt that I was wanted at home, to
build the country.”
Baseball legend Jackie Robinson speaks to African students. PHOTO | COURTESY OF CORA WEISS
A British educational attaché in Washington DC interviewed
Gitonga and other Kenyans for government jobs. Ms Kiilu was enlisted by a
British ex-colonial administrator. “He would come and recruit
prospective civil servants.” An estimated 95 per cent of students
returned home.
Prof Okatcha was recruited by the University College of Nairobi before completing his studies.
Almost 800 students benefited from the airlifts. Several male
graduates were deployed as district officers in the remotest parts of
Kenya. After graduating from Barrington College, Gitonga became a
provincial administrator, followed by 10 years in the diplomatic
service, then a decade as the MP for Lari constituency.
Women graduates joining the public service faced a tougher climb
to the top. “Women got jobs as assistant secretaries, the lowest
position of a public officer,” says Ms Chege.
Even with a degree in food science and dietetics from St Mary of
the Woods College in Indiana state, Ms Chege was unable to get a job at
the Ministry of Health in 1965.
“The officers in the ministry did not quite appreciate the value of a dietician as a member of the medical team,” she said.
So she turned to the NGO sector and was appointed head of
nutrition at Catholic Relief Services in Kenya. Later she joined the
Nairobi City Council and pioneered maternal-child healthcare programmes.
The airlifts ended in 1963. Since then, thousands of schools and
universities have been established in East Africa. But some
educationists in Kenya are concerned about the rapid evolution of new
universities.
“The most important things for a university are the staff,
facilities and coursework. Who is checking these things?” asks Prof
Okatcha, who retired from the University of Nairobi in 2013 after 45
years.
During his 1959 education trip, Mboya addressed a civil rights
rally in Washington DC and described the African freedom struggle as,
“Nothing less and nothing more than the eradication of poverty, disease
and ignorance.”
The struggle continues.
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