meetings with Vice President Richard Nixon, Adlai Stevenson, and Senator John Kennedy. Handsome,
a centrist compared to some of his rivals back home, and intellectually astute, Mboya was clearly an African that Americans could love.
With the flames of Pan-Africanism sweeping the globe and the embryonic seeds of the civil rights movement beginning to take root at home, U.S. leaders were keeping a close eye on the creep of independence across Africa. As tensions between the United States and Soviet Union rose steadily, the British colonies emerging from domination were seen as being up for grabs politically. Determined that those new nations not fall under Communist rule, the government was poised to intervene in any way that might bolster its posture in the simmering Cold War. In his increasingly fiery oratory before labor leaders and rapt college students, Mboya repeatedly drove home the link between education and political self-determination for the African nations. âA main theme in Mboyaâs speeches was the lambasting of the European powersâ attempts at continuing their domination in Africa through denying Africans access to higher education, which, he contended, prevented the training of the sort of educated leaders who could take new African nations through independence and to stability,â Tom Shachtman wrote in Airlift to America . 20
Mboya had a vision that he had been nursing for years. What he wanted to do was create an educational airlift of Africaâs best and brightest students, an airplane that would transport these students to the doors of American colleges and universities. All he needed was the help of his American friends. Riding the swell of his popularity, Mboya reconnected in New York with businessman William X. Scheinman, president of Arnav Aircraft Associates, and George Houser, the executive director ACOA, whom he had met on his first trip. Scheinman and Mboya had exchanged countless letters about specific students in particular and a possible scholarship program in general over the years. Now they were ready to take action, and the specific shape of an airlift began to emerge.
Together, they formed the African American Students Foundation (AASF) and assembled an impressive board of prominent African Americans, including Theodore W. Kheel, a nationally known labor lawyer and president of the National Urban League, and Jackie Robinson, the former baseball star. By the end of Mboyaâs five-week visit, the group had received pledges of more than fifty scholarships and had collected
$35,000, according to the AASF. 21 Though Scheinman became consumed with business interests in later years, he remained fascinated with Africa for the rest of his life. After his death in 1999, he was buried on Rusinga Island next to Tom Mboyaâs grave.
Mboya headed back to Kenya to start making arrangements for an aircraft. So began the first phase of one of the greatest achievements of his career. The airlift, which would turn out to be a series of flights, not only greatly enhanced Mboyaâs stature back home but it also produced a generation that would help shape the independent nation of Kenya. They were not large in number. At the time of independence, there were fewer than five hundred Kenyans with university degrees from overseas, one of the most poignant legacies of the colonial era. 22 But the scope of their achievement made up for their diminutive ranks. Over the next quarter of a century the graduates would make up half of Kenyaâs parliaments and cabinet ministries and would dominate the highest ranks of business. Today, they continue to comprise a select, albeit graying group with a unique collective memory of their countryâs historic formation.
Ever since the name Barack Obama first filtered into the American political lexicon in 2004, it has been said that his father was one of the students on the famous first airlift. President Obama declared it while campaigning in
a centrist compared to some of his rivals back home, and intellectually astute, Mboya was clearly an African that Americans could love.
With the flames of Pan-Africanism sweeping the globe and the embryonic seeds of the civil rights movement beginning to take root at home, U.S. leaders were keeping a close eye on the creep of independence across Africa. As tensions between the United States and Soviet Union rose steadily, the British colonies emerging from domination were seen as being up for grabs politically. Determined that those new nations not fall under Communist rule, the government was poised to intervene in any way that might bolster its posture in the simmering Cold War. In his increasingly fiery oratory before labor leaders and rapt college students, Mboya repeatedly drove home the link between education and political self-determination for the African nations. âA main theme in Mboyaâs speeches was the lambasting of the European powersâ attempts at continuing their domination in Africa through denying Africans access to higher education, which, he contended, prevented the training of the sort of educated leaders who could take new African nations through independence and to stability,â Tom Shachtman wrote in Airlift to America . 20
Mboya had a vision that he had been nursing for years. What he wanted to do was create an educational airlift of Africaâs best and brightest students, an airplane that would transport these students to the doors of American colleges and universities. All he needed was the help of his American friends. Riding the swell of his popularity, Mboya reconnected in New York with businessman William X. Scheinman, president of Arnav Aircraft Associates, and George Houser, the executive director ACOA, whom he had met on his first trip. Scheinman and Mboya had exchanged countless letters about specific students in particular and a possible scholarship program in general over the years. Now they were ready to take action, and the specific shape of an airlift began to emerge.
Together, they formed the African American Students Foundation (AASF) and assembled an impressive board of prominent African Americans, including Theodore W. Kheel, a nationally known labor lawyer and president of the National Urban League, and Jackie Robinson, the former baseball star. By the end of Mboyaâs five-week visit, the group had received pledges of more than fifty scholarships and had collected
$35,000, according to the AASF. 21 Though Scheinman became consumed with business interests in later years, he remained fascinated with Africa for the rest of his life. After his death in 1999, he was buried on Rusinga Island next to Tom Mboyaâs grave.
Mboya headed back to Kenya to start making arrangements for an aircraft. So began the first phase of one of the greatest achievements of his career. The airlift, which would turn out to be a series of flights, not only greatly enhanced Mboyaâs stature back home but it also produced a generation that would help shape the independent nation of Kenya. They were not large in number. At the time of independence, there were fewer than five hundred Kenyans with university degrees from overseas, one of the most poignant legacies of the colonial era. 22 But the scope of their achievement made up for their diminutive ranks. Over the next quarter of a century the graduates would make up half of Kenyaâs parliaments and cabinet ministries and would dominate the highest ranks of business. Today, they continue to comprise a select, albeit graying group with a unique collective memory of their countryâs historic formation.
Ever since the name Barack Obama first filtered into the American political lexicon in 2004, it has been said that his father was one of the students on the famous first airlift. President Obama declared it while campaigning in
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