The Belgian Congo Today. A Research Report.
[New York, NY]: [unpublished], 1960. 11 ” x 9”. Brad-bound black paper folder, typed title card to front, holding a 30 pp. report, typed rectos only with handwritten amendments + 6 publications, 26 clippings and 2 photographs stapled to pages. Pp. [2], 42, [2, bibliography]. Very good: folder a bit edge worn; small tear to title label; light thumb-soiling to first page; a few pages somewhat creased. Contents generally very good plus though a few clippings are loose and one has offsetting affecting several words of text.
This is an A-earning research report prepared by Clara Skipwith (later Dr. Clara “Skippi” Burgess), an African American woman studying at New York University. The paper thoroughly covers the state of the Belgian Congo during a period of extreme unrest, and is supplemented with rare publications, photographs, news clippings, maps and charts.
Clara M. Skipwith was born in 1931, attended Morgan State College in Baltimore and New York University and earned her doctorate in early childhood education in the 1960s. A member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Dr. Burgess served as principal of the Langston Hughes Little People's School in the Bronx (New York PS 236) and on the faculties of Union Graduate College and City College of CUNY. She was active with New York's WLIB radio (long regarded as the “Voice of Harlem”) and the National Council of Negro Women. A recipient of a Ford foundation grant and a selection by Marquis Who's Who of American Women, Burgess traveled and lectured widely and authored numerous professional papers. She died in North Carolina in 2017.
This report covers the crucial final months of political unrest and turmoil in the Belgian Congo leading up to independence in June 1960. Skipwith naturally focused on education as a factor, with charts from New York's Belgian Government Information Center relating statistics on types of schools, numbers of pupils, “European and African teachers” in the country. She also included 8” x 10” black and white photographs of former King Leopold II and “young King Baudouin of the Belgians.” There are a number of scarce, near pristine publications such as the June, September, November and “Special Edition” issues of Belgian Congo 59, monthly information bulletins located in OCLC only in bound volumes at 13 United States institutions. Others include The Mining Products of Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi (published at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair) with one holding in OCLC, and The Political Future of the Belgian Congo: The Royal Message and the Government's Declaration of January 13, 1959, with 14 holdings in OCLC, nine of which are in the United States. One great photographic news clipping shared that “Western-style education, here exemplified in a school in the Belgian Congo, is a principal weapon of the new African nations against the divisive force of tribalism,” and the report's final 12 pages are dedicated to 1959 New York Times clippings with headlines like “Violence Erupts,” “Tribesmen Flee Attack,” “Boycott Set,” “24 Killed in Riot,” “Congo Militants Claiming Victory” and “Tribe War Perils Liberty.” There is also an uncommon map of the region, dated 1953. Our author, with great foresight, opined that “Every day brings another question and another problem to the surface in the Congo. This is not the end of the political picture in the Congo, but the beginning.” The Congo Crisis began near immediately upon independence from Belgium, constituting a series of civil wars and political upheaval until 1965.
A prescient exposition of unrest in Central Africa, written by an African American woman with a focus on education, including rare, important publications and extensive newspaper coverage. Very good. Item #8925
Price: $875.00