A surviving photograph from 1960 shows Nigerian Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa standing beside anthropologist Melville J. Herskovits at Northwestern University while both men hold a stack of books. The image preserves a moment from the year Nigeria entered independence, when the country’s new leadership appeared before the international academic community and when African studies was gaining a stronger presence in American universities.
The meeting brought together two figures whose work reflected important developments of the mid twentieth century. Balewa represented the leadership of a newly independent African nation, while Herskovits stood among the scholars who helped shape the early academic study of Africa in the United States.
Nigeria’s First Prime Minister
Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was one of the leading political figures in Nigeria’s transition from colonial rule to independence. Born in 1912 in Bauchi Province in northern Nigeria, he began his career in education before entering politics. His training included studies at Katsina Training College and later at the Institute of Education at the University of London.
Balewa became active in politics through the Northern People’s Congress, which emerged as the dominant political organization in northern Nigeria during the final decades of British rule. He first gained national attention through his work in the Nigerian Legislative Council and later through constitutional negotiations that prepared the country for self government.
On 1 October 1960 Nigeria became independent from Britain, and Balewa became the first Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. His government faced the difficult task of governing a vast and diverse country organized into a federal system balancing the Northern, Western, and Eastern regions.
During the early years of independence, Balewa represented Nigeria in international diplomacy. The country joined the United Nations soon after independence, and Balewa spoke for Nigeria in global forums while promoting cooperation among newly independent African states.
He remained in office until January 1966, when Nigeria’s first military coup ended the civilian government.
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Melville J. Herskovits and the Development of African Studies
Melville J. Herskovits was one of the most prominent scholars associated with the early development of African studies in the United States. Born in 1895 in Ohio, he studied anthropology at Columbia University under Franz Boas, whose work emphasized cultural understanding and challenged racial theories common in earlier academic traditions.
Herskovits joined Northwestern University in 1927 and spent most of his academic career there. Over several decades he conducted research in West Africa and across the African diaspora, including in Suriname, Haiti, Brazil, Trinidad, and Dahomey, now the Republic of Benin.
His most widely known book, The Myth of the Negro Past, published in 1941, examined the survival of African cultural traditions in the Americas. In the book he argued that African influences remained visible in religion, music, language, family life, and social customs among communities descended from enslaved Africans.
The work helped draw greater scholarly attention to Africa and the African diaspora and encouraged new research into cultural connections across the Atlantic world.
Building an Academic Field
Herskovits also played an important role in establishing African studies as an organized academic field. In 1951 Northwestern University appointed him to what is widely recognized as the first professorial chair in African studies in the United States.
He was among the founding members of the African Studies Association and served as its first president from 1957 to 1958. The association brought together scholars from several disciplines and helped create a professional community focused on the study of African history, cultures, and societies.
Northwestern University and African Scholarship
Northwestern University became one of the major centers for African studies in the United States during the mid twentieth century. Herskovits contributed to this development through teaching, research, and the creation of specialized collections devoted to Africa.
One of the most significant results of this effort was the Herskovits Library of African Studies, founded in 1954. Over time it grew into one of the most important Africana research collections in the world.
Today the library contains more than 400,000 volumes and includes over 20,000 books written in more than 300 African languages. Its holdings also include newspapers, manuscripts, maps, posters, photographs, and audiovisual materials that support research on African history and culture.
A Meeting in the Year of Independence
The photograph of Balewa and Herskovits belongs to the year Nigeria achieved independence. In 1960 Nigeria entered the international community as a sovereign state, and its leaders appeared in diplomatic and educational settings around the world.
During the same period universities in the United States and Europe were expanding academic programs devoted to Africa. The meeting at Northwestern reflects this broader moment when political leadership from newly independent African countries and academic institutions abroad increasingly interacted through visits, lectures, and cultural exchange.
The image captures Balewa during the first year of Nigeria’s independence while he stood beside a scholar whose work helped bring Africa into greater focus within American academic life.
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A Photograph from a Transforming Era
Photographs often become valuable historical records because they preserve encounters that reflect wider historical changes. The image of Tafawa Balewa and Melville Herskovits belongs to such a moment.
Balewa represented the leadership of a nation beginning its life as an independent state. Herskovits represented a generation of scholars who helped establish the academic study of Africa in American universities.
The photograph therefore offers a glimpse into a time when African political leadership and the scholarly study of Africa were gaining new international visibility. It remains a small but meaningful record of that period of transformation.
Author’s Note
Moments like this photograph remind readers how political history and intellectual life sometimes meet in quiet ways. Abubakar Tafawa Balewa stood at the beginning of Nigeria’s independence, carrying the responsibilities of leading a new nation. Melville J. Herskovits represented an academic world that was beginning to treat Africa as a serious field of study. Their meeting at Northwestern University reflects a period when Africa’s political future and the global understanding of its history and cultures were both entering a new stage.
References
Northwestern University Libraries, About Melville J. Herskovits
Northwestern University Program of African Studies, Herskovits Library of African Studies
