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"The Most Patient Of Animals, Next To The Ass:" Jan Smuts, Howard University, And African American Leandership, 1930, Robert Edgar, Myra Ann Houser
"The Most Patient Of Animals, Next To The Ass:" Jan Smuts, Howard University, And African American Leandership, 1930, Robert Edgar, Myra Ann Houser
Articles
Former South African Prime Minister Jan Smuts’ 1930 European and North American tour included a series of interactions with diasporic African and African American activists and intelligentsia. Among Smuts’s many remarks stands a particular speech he delivered in New York City, when he called Africans “the most patient of all animals, next to the ass.” Naturally, this and other comments touched off a firestorm of controversy surrounding Smuts, his visit, and segregationist South Africa’s laws. Utilizing news coverage, correspondence, and recollections of the trip, this article uses his visit as a lens into both African American relations with Africa and …