Africa Today's Yesterdays IAuthor(s): George M. HouserSource: Africa Today, Vol. 26, No. 1 (1st Qtr., 1979), pp. 25-26Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4185825 .

Accessed: 10/06/2014 16:36

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Indiana University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Africa Today.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.161 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 16:36:55 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

25th Anniversary Special

Africa Today's Yesterdays I

George M. Houser

When the first issue of Africa Today appeared, I was on my first trip to Africa. But I had been involved in the founding of the American Committee on Africa a year or more earlier, and became full time executive director in September 1955. The first issues of Africa Today were typed and mimeographed in the basement of the John Haynes Holmes House, owned by and next door to the Community Church of New York on East 35th Street off Park Avenue. This space was contributed by the church. George Shepherd was then executive director of ACOA, and therefore editor of the first issues. When shortly thereafter Keith Irvine became editor, his editorial committee consisted of Shepherd, Robert Browne, now director of the Black Economic Research Center and still a member of Africa Today Associates, Beatrice Holloway, who died a few years ago, and Lydia Zemba, who left her job with Doubleday Publishers and was ACOA's first office secretary. With very little appearing in the American press about Africa, the journal from the beginning served an indispensable role.

While the compilation that follows covers many of the important themes that occupied Africa Today over the years, others come to mind. With the beginnings of the so-called "Mau Mau" movement preceding the founding of the journal by only a few months major attention in early years was given to the struggle for Kenyan independence. Gold Coast self- government and Ghanaian independence were extensively covered, as was the war for independence in Algeria. Both of these themes are represented by one or two quotes in the following section, but articles or comment appeared for years in almost every issue. South Africa's racial tyranny under apartheid has had extensive coverage. It is a bit disheartening and disconcerting to realize how little things have changed in that country when, with the change of a few words and names, articles written twenty or twenty five years ago still accurately describe conditions today.

Signifying the on-going struggle in South Africa the November 1963 issue of Africa Today had a poem written by Dennis Brutus, now an Africa Today editorial c6nsultant, entitled "For a Dead African." Dennis himself

George M. Houser is Executive Director of' the American Committee on Africa and President of Africa Today Associates.

Vol. 26 (1979) No. 1 25

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.161 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 16:36:55 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

had been shot and wounded by South African police on September 17th, 1963 and subsequently served a term in Robben Island, the maximum security prison of Cape Town. He wrote the poem in memory of John Nangoza Jebe who was shot by the police in a Good Friday procession in Port Elizabeth in 1956.

We have no heroes and no wars only victims of a sickly state succumbing to the variegated sores that flower under lashing rains of hate. We have no battles and no fights for history to record with trite remark; only captives killed on eyeless nights and accidental dyings in the dark. Yet when the roll of those who died to free our land is called, without surprise these nameless unarmed ones will stand beside the warriors who secured the final prize.

| 11 _E E | S I g~~~~W 1~

Cover Illustration from Africa Today, March 1964

26 AFRICA TODAY

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.161 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 16:36:55 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions