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Africa: 'Extraordinary Leadership' Needed on Africa, Says Africare Chief

Charles Cobb Jr.

6 November 2001

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Washington, DC — Africare, the oldest and largest African-American private organization grappling with health and development issues in Africa honors Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, President of Morehouse College, at its annual dinner, November 6, in Washington, DC. Secretary of State Colin Powell will be the keynote speaker. The organization is 30-years-old now and this is the tenth year for the dinner. In an interview with allAfrica's Charles Cobb Jr, a reflective C. Payne Lucas, President of Africare, looked back as well as ahead. Excerpts:

You've managed to keep working for Africa longer than almost anybody. How have you managed to do that?

Well, I started out working in Africa in 1961 at the Peace Corps. I had no idea of what I was getting involved in. I was coming directly from the Democratic National Committee. The election was over and I asked John Baily who was then the Chairman of the DNC, "Now that John Kennedy has won the election, what about a job for me?"

He said, "Well, why don't you go over to the Peace Corps and ask Sargeant Shriver for a job?" I went over and asked, and he said: "Alright, Lucas, you've got a job. You're going to Africa and you're going to be going out to Togo." I thought the guy was crazy. I had no idea where Togo was. Was it a country? So I rushed home and got myself a map and found out it was a country in West Africa. The rest is history.

I went off to Africa. I had grown up in a little place in North Carolina called Spring Hope, North Carolina, where you spring up and hope to get out; I had no idea where Togo was or what it was. The only thing I knew about Africa was what the Tarzan movies showed. Wildlife, game, unclad people, virtually no civilization.

A couple of weeks later, I was on a plane to West Africa and I landed in this place called Lomé, Togo. And less than a month after I arrived, they had a coup, the first real coup in West Africa. Sylvanus Olympio, the first President, was overthrown and Nicolas Grunitzky came to power. And suddenly, everything was coming down on me because the country director got fired - I had gone out to be his assistant and Shriver was not pleased with his work - and I wound up being the acting country director, this little boy from Spring Hope, North Carolina. And quite frankly, I fell in love with the place.

What was it that made you fall in love with the place?

Because all the myths about Africa were being destroyed - that Africa had no civilization, that it was just a place for wildlife and game. I was in a place where black people were running the country! I had never seen any place where blacks were running the government. While it might not have been a perfect government, it was a government run by black people.

I made numerous African friends and what I found out was that Africans had enormous respect for African-Americans who knew what they were doing. I didn't have some mystical notion about Africa. I was just pleased to find market women running markets and national assemblies meeting and black people running movie theaters, running hotels, all these things being run by Africans, something I had never seen before, because when it came to these same things in America, I was just a servant to them.

So what I saw in Togo those first weeks was appealing and gave me enormous respect for Africans. I became addicted to the African continent. And 40-some years later, I'm still working in Africa.

So, how do you get from this first experience in Togo to Africare?

Well, my Peace Corps experience was, by law, restricted to five years. I had been in the Peace Corps six years when they passed a law saying you could only stay in the Corps for five so I wound up staying eleven years before they literally said, "Lucas, you've got to get out, by law."

I'd gone from Togo to the Republic of Niger, on to Senegal and Kenya and Ghana to set up Peace Corps programs, so with my mandatory retirement, I said: "What am I supposed to do? All I'm committed to is helping my brothers and sisters in Africa."

While I was in Niger I got to meet Hamani Diori, who was then the President. He had grown to like Americans because American volunteers were teaching him English. I got to know him. I had gone to Niger on a temporary assignment because no one wanted to go there. The temperature was around 101 degrees. Shriver said: "Lucas, we want you to stay in Niger." I said, "You've got to be kidding!" But he said, "it's Niger or nothing."

Well, I didn't want to go back to Spring Hope. I took Niger on and I fell in love with the country. I came to appreciate, with my tour in Niger, that you don't have to be in a country with large buildings, big universities and lots of material things to appreciate a country and its culture. Because these things were not present in Niger.

I got to know the people, I got to know the culture, predominantly Islamic. I met the Hausa people, Nur people, Fulani people, the Tuaregs, and others. And out of each of those groups of people I grew to have respect for their cultures. It was out of my stay in Niger that I learned to appreciate that this continent, with its vast resources and varied cultures, is one of the most exciting places in the world.

I went to Niger around 1965 and stayed for about three years and then I finally got a request from Sargeant Shriver to come in and become the regional director for all of Africa. And I came in, then, and that was also part of that transition from being the director in Niger to President Diori asking me to do something on my own. I did a couple of years in Washington and then decided to leave the Peace Corps.

I'd become so involved with, and so committed to, the people of Africa, I felt compelled to work with all these black people because I saw so much potential. I saw the art. I saw the music. I saw the capability of nations of people. I said to myself, if we can give them a little bit of help, this continent can tap its vast potential.

I continue to make that case for Africa, in the sense that African-Americans should organize themselves to support the culture and people of Africa, in the same way that our Jewish brothers and sisters do with Israel, or our Irish brothers and sisters do with Ireland. or Italians or all the other hyphenated Americans. Africa could realize its full potential, become a major trading partner in the global economic community; it could become a major player in the political community. And that is the great challenge of our time.

Africa wasn't very high on anybody's agenda back then. How did you find money and resources? And what did you do?

I was unable to sell the idea to the foundation community in America, but the [1974 Sahelian] drought and famine was so desperate for the people in West Africa that I was able to sell my ideas to the poor people in Washington, DC.

In the early days of our appeal it was the poor people of Southeast and Northeast who came with their bags of pennies and their churches who responded to the drought and famine because they knew what it was like to be without! Our initial support in America came from the people least able to give; they saw the brotherhood and the desperate needs better than anyone else. When I showed them pictures of people starving, the famine and whatnot, they reached into their pockets and into their church plates to contribute. And having gotten that initial contribution I went to other foundations and out of that suddenly, we had almost $75,000 which, back in 1975, was all the money in the world.

Remember, President Diori had authorized us to work from the Niger embassy, so we had no overhead. We were in the embassy working and we were able to convince Carl Rowan, who then was working at Channel 9 television, to go to Africa and make a movie on the West African drought. Carl's drought and famine piece, done with J.C. Hayward, was so dramatic that after it was shown in Washington and around the nation we were able to raise a couple of hundred thousand dollars. This was another motivator for building the institution.

Out of this, and a nucleus of three or four predominantly African-Americans and former Peace Corps volunteers, Africare in a real sense was born, committed to helping Africa realize its full potential. We're not there, but we were convinced, even in the face of that drought - and remain convinced now in the face of the HIV/Aids crisis and the events of September 11 - that Africa will one day become a full partner. While many Africans have given up the struggle, those of us who work in Africare have never given up.

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