The Schomburg Collection is a library of special materials devoted to Negro life and history. It is international in scope covering every phase of activity of peoples of African descent. It ranges from early rarities to current materials on happenings from Tennessee to Timbuctoo. The Collection is mainly based on Arthur A. Schomburg's distinguished private library of rarities and treasures which was purchased from him and presented to the New York Public Library by the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1926. However, a year earlier the Division of Negro Literature, History and Prints had been established in the One Hundred and Thirty-fifth Street Branch of the New York Public Library meet the neighborhood demands for books by and about Negroes.

I had originally planned to focus on some of the more important aspects of race and ethnicity in Africa south of the Sahara, with particular reference to tensions and conflicts operative within the emergent social and political systems. I soon the realized, however, that the subject was far too complex for brief presentation, at least the kind of brevity ritualistically mandatory on this ceremonial occasion. I decided, consequently, to concentrate on one aspect of the complex cited, namely, the problems and prospects of the white man, particularly as settler, in the revolutionary Africa of today. Obviously, this grand theme, given all the imponderables involved, can only be touched upon lightly and is not easily susceptible to “scientific” treatment. I shall do my best, however, in handling this value-laden problem to observe the procedures and the folkways of objective analysis.

Since it began active programs in 1951, the Ford Foundation has had two principal sorts of interest in the areas outside the Western world. One is to help these areas in the development efforts that are now their great preoccupation. There is a division of the Foundation called the Overseas Development Program that has this purpose. Another interest is in American capacities for understanding and dealing with the non-Western world. The Foundation's International Training and Research Program pursues this aim, through grants to universities and other academic organizations, through an area training fellowship program, and through other means. A third division of the Foundation, the International Affairs Program, supports non-academic American organizations concerned with international affairs, and adds other sorts of activities through in Europe and a general concern with peace and international order.

Any library investigation must have a bibliographical starting point. In the Africana field, for whatever aspect of African life one is concerned with, the starting point is Theodore Besterman's A World Bibliography of Bibliographies, the third and final edition of which was brought down to 1953 ana published in 1955. This massive 4-volume compilation contains 13 columns of entries under general heading: Africa. Entries for individual subjects, countries, and peoples should also be consulted. For the period since 1953, the bibliography of bibliographies section of the national bibliographies of European countries, South Africa, and the National Union Catalog of the United States should be consulted.

In 1959 the Libraries Committee of the African Studies Association undertook a survey of holdings of Africana in American Theological libraries. The official approval of both the American Theological Library Association and the Catholic Library Association was received and inquiries were sent to a selected group of libraries in each Association. The main purpose was to ascertain the location of significant collections of printed material and to uncover, if possible, unknown or unrecorded manuscripts.

A very successful symposium was organized by the Afrika-Institut, Leiden, in 1955 on the theme of “The future of customary law in Africa.” Unfortunately this symposium had a restricted membership and there was not sufficient time to consider all the very fundamental problems that are raised by this subject today. The British territories in Africa have also held two professional the conferences on native courts and native customary law, both under the chairmanship of Sir Kenneth Roberts-Wray, Legal Adviser to the Colonial Office and the Commonwealth Relations Office. These “Judicial Advisers' Conferences,” as they were termed, were held Kampala, Uganda, in 1955, and at Jos, Nigeria, in 1956; the reports of their proceedings have been published as supplements to the Journal of African Administration.

President Eisenhower's timely proposal for aid to African education through the family of United Nations organizations is potentially one of the great ideas of the twentieth century. It comes at a point in history when the need for mutual understanding between the United States and Africa has never been greater.

Aware of this growing need, the United States National Commission for UNESCO decided two years ago to devote its Eighth National Conference in 1961 to the vital task of fostering better relations between the United States and Africa. The National Commission was established by Act of Congress in 1946 to further the aims of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural organization. It is composed of 100 members, 60 of whom represent national organizations having a total membership of over 30,000,000. The Commission believes that the Eighth National Conference can best achieve its objectives by concentrating on relevant educational, scientific, and cultural issues, with emphasis on education. The Conference will focus primarily on Africa of the Sahara.

The Africa Collections at Stanford University are divided between the University Libraries, including the Food Research Institute's department library, and the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace. The Hoover Institution maintains a major part of the Stanford Africa Collection, but its holdings are complemented by those of the University Libraries. During the past year, the Curator of the Africa Collection at the Hoover Institution has attempted to stimulate University interest in Africa and to coordinate acquisitions. This program has been successful, and a reasonably full coverage of African materials is now assured. The University Library has accepted responsibility for the fields of art, ethnography, geography, linguistics, philosophy, religion, sociology, statistics, and technical documents, as well as all African material before 1870.

Members of the African Studies Association may be interested to know something about the Department of African Studies at the University of Delhi, which I visited last fall. This is the only African studies program in India; it was established in 1955 at the instance of the Government of India following a rapid increase in interest among Indians in political ana racial affairs in Africa. The prospectus for the Department states that it was established “in order that India might have a centre for the study of Africa—her history and culture and arts, her social institutions and her languages, her politics, her race relations and her other problems, her economics and her geography. It is intended that at this centre facilities shall be provided for research as well as for the stuay of particular courses leading to tne conferment of certificates, diplomas and aegrees.

The recent dramatic emergence of tropical Africa to the center stage of international affairs has raised African studies to a position of grave national concern. If the new African nations are faced with the problems of adjusting in all too short a time to the responsibilities and tasks of independence, we on our side are faced with equally grave problems in meeting our responsibilities to them. In diplomatic relations, business and industrial contacts, and education and technical assistance programs, our critical need now is for a detaile understanding of these diverse nations.

Some Africanists work on Africa as a continent, but there are probably more who prefer to focus attention on the area to the south of the desert. The terms “Africa South of the Sahara,” and the shorter but less popular “Sub-Saharan Africa” have been invented to meet this need.

There are so many differences in historical development, climates, economic policy, education, agriculture, politics, and other aspects between the Union of South Africa and the rest of Africa, however, that one often wishes to exclude the Union or Southern Africa, as well as Northern Africa, from a research project or a discussion. “Tropical Africa” is a convenient label which is in widespread use among those dealing with such things as climate and agricultural production, as well as among some historians, and no doubt its use will continue. But it has not been accepted by the general public, perhaps because it suggests that one wishes to deal with tropical products, the zone between the two tropic lines, or tropical conditions of some kind rather than to merely exclude Northern and Southern Africa from consideration.