Africa Fund (New York, N.Y.)

Organization

Staff Only

Historical Note

The Africa Fund, a non-profit 501(c)3 organizations, was founded in 1966 by the American Committee on Africa (ACOA). The Africa Fund and ACOA shared office space and some staff (including the Executive Director), and there was some overlap between the boards of the two organizations. The Executive Directors were: George M. Houser (1966-1981), Jennifer Davis (1981-2000) and Salih Booker (2000-2001).

The Africa Fund worked to support the struggles against colonialism and apartheid in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Namibia, Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) and South Africa. The Africa Fund provided material assistance to the education and health programs of African liberation movements, including the Mozambique Institute, a FRELIMO-run school in Tanzania. The Africa Fund distributed the money raised by the Sun City album, including sending $220,000 to the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (SOMAFCO) run by the African National Congress (ANC) in Tanzania; $160,000 to the South African Council of Churches to aid political prisoners and their families; and $119,000 each to TransAfrica and the ACOA for anti-apartheid educational work in the United States.

The Fund also provided clothing, medicine, and other support to refugee camps run by liberation movements of South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Western Sahara in Angola, Mozambique, Zambia and Algeria. It provided small emergency assistant grants to African refugees in the U.S., and conducted research into U.S. corporate involvement in southern Africa. It published numerous publications that were widely used by other solidarity organizations in the U.S., from short fact sheets to a comprehensive directory of U.S. corporations doing business in apartheid South Africa and illegally occupied Namibia.

The Africa Fund sponsored a weekly half hour television news program "South Africa Now" produced by Globalvision from 1988 to 1991. The Africa Fund conducted public education campaigns in the U.S., including the "Unlock Apartheid's Jails" campaign for the release of detainees and political prisoners in South Africa. In the 1990s, The Africa Fund had an active program supporting the struggle against the dictatorship in Nigeria. Following the end of apartheid, the Fund had a program to promote the involvement of state and municipal officials with U.S. policy toward Africa, including campaigning for the cancellation of Africa's debt.

In 2001, The Africa Fund, ACOA and the Washington, DC-based Africa Policy Information Center merged to form Africa Action and somewhat later the New York office was closed.

Found in 2 Collections and/or Records:

The Africa Fund records

Collection

Identifier: 744

Scope and Contents The Africa Fund records cover the era independence movements on the African continent against the British, Dutch, French, German, and Portuguese colonial governments. The records document settler and exploitative colonialism that occurred in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. The records also cover the era of civil wars within these African countries following independence, including South Africa's apartheid government and anti-apartheid campaigns there, as well as in...

Dates: Created: 1952-2001; Other: Majority of material found in 1979-1997; Other: Date acquired: 01/09/1989

Found in: Amistad Research Center / The Africa Fund records

Campaign to Oppose Bank Loans to South Africa (COBLSA) records

Collection

Identifier: 736

Scope and Contents The records of the Campaign to Oppose Bank Loans to South Africa (COBLSA) consist of research files, collected news clippings, presentation papers, publications, periodicals, and reports (1977-1983), as well as files generated during the tenure of National Coordinator Carole Collins (1981-1983). A smaller amount of material that the organization created includes correspondence, occasional minutes of meetings and reports, lists of bank lenders to South Africa and networking contacts. Of...

Dates: Created: 1967-1995; Other: Majority of material found in 1979-1983; Other: Date acquired: 07/01/2000

Found in: Amistad Research Center / Campaign to Oppose Bank Loans to South Africa (COBLSA) records

Filtered By

Subject: South Africa -- Foreign economic relations X