Southern African Documentary Project in the US

Abstract

Dr. Carter spoke of the plans of a group of American scholars with primary interests in southern Africa research to undertake, with the aid of a small Ford Foundation grant, a systematic program of identifying, classifying and micro-filming scattered and fragile southern African documentary resources held in the United States which have previously been largely inaccessible, and to co-ordinate this program with on-going efforts in South Africa, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. These plans build on discussions held at Northwestern University during the fall of 1971, when a score of American and South African scholars met twice to consider the most promising means of overcoming the existing difficulties in undertaking basic research in significant aspects of the complex South African experience. These difficulties have led in the past, with rare exceptions, to partial and often seriously unbalanced interpretations of historical and contemporary developments in southern Africa.