In its present form and function, the socio-political institution of American education does not properly serve citizens of African descent. What is now recognized as higher education geared towards meeting the special needs of black students is commonly labeled Black Studies. It is submitted here that Black Studies programs, in the main, are nothing more than reactions to the oppression that obtains within the institutional system of higher education. Unquestionably, the majority of these programs differ little in concept or approach from academic programs in the Euro-American tradition.

Economic planning in America, while not promoting socialism, did at least prevent officials and Africanists in the U.S. from being caught short by the wave of African independence which broke in 1960. Indeed, such planning seems to have insured that the U.S. would be present in Africa at that historic moment.

In studying the remote past of nonliterate peoples in Africa (and throughout the world), the historian depends for pratically all his material on archaeology. This means that the empahsis in the methodology of African history is differentfrom the emphasis in that of other histories. This is not to say that attempts to accurately reconstruct the remote past of peoples outside Africa do not involve a similar technique of discovery from material as well as physical remains, but that a greater part of their history is documented and is revealed through the use of conventional historical methods.

Commenting on the work of Portuguese clerics outside Portugal, a former Minister of Overseas Territories referred to the government’s understanding that missionary work could not be separated from the high interest of the State. While Portuguese officials have long appreciated the support of the Church in Africa, the Church itself has been silent regarding the identity of interests between Portuguese colonial policy and church evangelization. This silence—sign of the acquiescence of Portuguese bishops to the colonial regime—led the White Fathers to speak-out, denouncing policies supported by the Church in Mozambique.

The planning of United States policy toward Africa is no different from the planning of United States policy toward the other major areas of the world, for which the five regional bureaus of the Department of State have responsibility. Africa competes with Europe, East Asia, Latin America, the Near East and South Asia, for personnel, for resources, and for the attention and energies of those who are involved in the policy flow.

In 1974 Nigeria will host the Second World Black Festival of Arts and Culture in Lagos. The first World Festival of Negro Arts was held in Dakar, Senegal, in 1966, and Nigeria was then honored with the role of “Star Country.” In agreeing to host the Second Festival, the Nigerian government is fully aware that the 1974 Festival will be the greatest concourse of black peoples from different continents in the entire history of the black man, and it is therefore determined to ensure that the Festival will contribute significantly to the enhancement of black communion and the resurgence of the artistic and cultural civilization of the black peoples of the world.

African-American relations at present are characterized by a situation in which the United States government and United States investors take more resources out of Africa than they put in. There is a negative balance of payments in the flow of aid, trade, and other resources. Consequently, Africans are disappointed in America and have little faith in the ability of this Western power to make even a modest contribution to the resolution of African problems by African means.