A History of the University College of Fort Hare, South Africa, the 1950S The Waiting Years - Studies in Local and Institutional History

This volume explores the story of The University College of Fort Hare, the first college instituted for higher education of the blacks in Southern Africa. It was founded as the South African Native College in 1916, under missionary auspices, and, in 1951, it was affiliated with Rhodes University and renamed The University College of Fort Hare. In 1960, it was taken over by the Afrikaner Nationalist Government as a college for Xhosa students only. It became one of four "ethnic" colleges, while admission to the white "open" universities was severely curtailed. This book explains the events relating to the college in the 1950s, examining how staff and students opposed the legislation to place the college under government control and reduce its staff to civil servants. The affairs of the college are discussed against the background of rapidly changing conditions in South Africa, with campus disturbances and protests sometimes linked to the wider application of apartheid.;The author was a faculty member at the college from 1952 to 1959, working first as a Lecturer and later as Professor and Head of the Department of History.