Author: Philip Ochieng
Date: January 14, 2007
Type of article: Commentary
Source: The Daily Nation - only available online by registration and paid subscription fee

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Why is Cora Wess’s visit to Kenya this week so significant? Because she once played a pivotal role in a remarkable educational initiative for Kenya.

She helped form the African-American Students Foundation (AASF) to secure scholarships and fund airlifts for hundreds of young Africans to pursue tertiary education on American campuses.

The idea was hatched by Tom Mboya, the redoubtable nationalist, with Julius Kiano, who had just returned home with a PhD from an American university and knew how the land lay 

Among the organisers and benefactors on the other side was a young senator called John F. Kennedy — not yet very well known abroad but already spellbinding home audiences with his gift of the gab. 

Harry Belafonte charmed our ears with his satirical calypso ballads. Sidney Poitier was a Hollywood star already full of sheen. Jackie Robinson had made history by becoming the first black man to play professional baseball.

But the AASF’s nub and core was the “Jewish connection”. Frank Montero was the chairman and Bill Scheinmann his deputy, while Cora served was executive director, co-ordinating student orientation and advice and orchestrating the appeal for funds to defray the airlift, accommodation and academic costs — responsibilities which she discharged with aplomb.

Insuperable niggardliness

And their success was remarkable, coming against what looked like insuperable corporate niggardliness, political foot-dragging, intellectual cynicism and general prejudice about educating Africans.

Nevertheless, over $1 million was collected to fund some 230 scholarships. The first plane left Nairobi in 1959 with 81 Kenyan students, including me, for an Odyssey that took us to Entebbe, Khartoum, Cairo, Rome, London, Shannon (Ireland) and Gander (Newfoundland) before rolling into New York City’s airport known nowadays as John F. Kennedy.

But Mboya’s idea was much more ambitious. He soon arranged with other nationalists in the region to include students from Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Nyasaland (now Malawi). 

And soon financially able Africans began to chip in to enable each student to bag up to $1,000 — big money at that time! — for living expenses in the US. 

So, though the programme ended in 1963, it had opened a floodgate. Each year, thousands of young Africans still stream into the United States through programmes inspired by the AASF. And Cora and her colleagues developed strong love for Africa which they have never lost.

After Tom was assassinated in 1969, Bill Scheinman visited his family regularly, and I sometimes had occasion to accompany him for a tour of Rusinga Island, the ancestral home of both Tom and myself in which Tom is buried. 

Cora still going strong

Bill died six years ago. Jackie, Frank and John F have also gone. But Cora is going strong, now dedicated to the International Peace Bureau, which won Nobel in 1910. She led the parade for Kofi Annan’s ceremony in Oslo and has twice been nominated for Nobel as head of the Hague Appeal for Peace.

That is one reason she is coming — to address a World Social Forum on peace education. She tells me in an e-mail message: “I will be speaking about women, peace and security with the 1,000 women from around the world nominated for Nobel...”

Among the successful nominees is our own Wangari Maathai and the two ladies have been in very close contact ever since Wangari collected her trophy two years ago. And she will feature prominently in a reunion being arranged for Cora.

The idea is to bring together all the airlift beneficiaries for a kind of stock-taking. Did the efforts of the fifties contribute anything to social uplift in Kenya and the US?

She writes: “I thought it might be a wonderful opportunity to meet some of the airlift alumni and find out how their experiences in the US affected their lives and impacted the culture of Kenya ... I will say something about how the experience has affected American society ... I have long felt that we have never fully appreciated the significance ... of the unique airlift.” 

Quite. My task is only to invite the alumni to send in their names and contacts for advice as to the venue and time of this re-enactment of that ancient adventure and comradeship.