Exiled Nieman Fellow Scores Apartheid

Lewis P. Nkosi, the young Nieman Fellow hindered in coming to Harvard by the racist policies of the Union of South Africa, arrived in Cambridge Monday. Nkosi was allowed to leave South Africa only on the condition that he should never return.

Commenting on the difficulties of African students in gaining an education, Nkosi mentioned an acquaintance who was denied permission to leave the country to study. Claimed the government: he would be "unfit to take his proper place in South African society after an American education."

The student subsequently suffered a mental breakdown and at present is in a mental hospital.

In South Africa, a land which prior to the apartheid policies of the Verwoerd government educated more Africans than any other, it is now practically impossible to gain an education. Nkosi declared. All schools and universities are under government control.

"The universities that the government has get up for the Africans will be tribal colleges designed to teach the African his place and teach him that his place is inferior," Nkosi said. Nkosi himself has received no formal education beyond the high school level.

Any change in the educational policies of the South African government must be brought about from the outside, said Nkosi. "The government has prepared a bill which will make it virtually impossible to write anything but fiction in the newspapers." An uninformed populace cannot effect changes, he declared; it rests with journalists in the outside world to inform the people of South Africa' plight.

Plans such as the Peace Corps and the PBH Project Tanganyika are "a tremendous thing," enthused Nkosi, "a tangible contribution by which African youth can come into contact with people who are educated and who can train them."

Naturally, the segregation problem in America has created much interest among Africans, he said, but "on the whole the situation is much more hopeful here." It was felt that the Eisenhower Administration had not been forceful enough in desegregating. Better things are expected of Kennedy, Nkosi added.

While at Harvard Nkosi hopes to acquaint students with the culture of Africa. Most Americans, he feels, do not "know the people they're trying to help." An African arts festival, he suggested, would help make Africa better known.

Assigned a room in Dunster House. Nkosi looks forward to life among the Funsters. "I'm trying to get as much as I can from your great American institution." he said.