USA Africa Dialogue Series - Obituary: Charles W. Harris

THE GREAT CHARLES HARRIS - A TRIBUTE

by

Anthony Akinola*

            Those who have nurtured our educational growth, at whatever level, deserve our appreciation and love.  These "second parents" of ours are the really great men and women in our lives.  The good ones among them deserve equal appreciation, even when there may be reasons why the memory of just a few remain permanently engraved in our hearts.

            Two in the long list of my teachers often come to my mind each time I was asked about those who have motivated me.  Maybe there was one extra thing they did that gave me a psychological boost.  The first teacher, one Mr Ibitoye, fondly called me "Azikiwe" while I was a pupil at St John's Primary School, Ikere-Ekiti.  Even as a small child, I appreciated that it was a complement.  Our perception of the great Nnamdi Azikiwe was that of a very brilliant human being. We young children of the 1950s were fed with the rumour that, upon his death, Azikiwe's head would be sold to a foreign nation so an experiment could be performed on his brain.  However, the thought of Azikiwe's head being removed from his body worried me for quite some time!

            However, the one I would consider as my most memorable teacher happens to be one who taught me at university.  Not particularly about my ability to grasp things but significantly about a character whose love for others transcends class, ethnicity and race.  It is about a life that is purged of avoidable prejudices.  The great Professor Charles W Harris, an African-American, literally took me as his "favourite son" while I was a student of Political Science at Howard University in the United States of America.  It is one relationship that has continued until today.

            My journey to the United States in December 1979 was a journey into the unknown.  Like most students from the so-called Third World, I went to the USA in the belief that once I had succeeded in arriving in that great nation, matters would sort themselves out.  I had just enough money to see me through the first semester at Howard University, convinced that I would eventually succeed in earning my degree through work and study.  The work and study strategy, if one must confess, ensured students spent much longer completing their degree and I was somewhat in a hurry.

            It was indeed an "amazing grace" that my passage through university was a lot more comfortable than I could ever have anticipated.  The great Professor Harris it was who brought it to my attention that students who were able to attain a high grade point average (GPA) in a given semester could be exempted from paying fees for the next one. This encouragement from a great university, as Howard is, ensured that the only fees I ever paid were for my first semester.  I even had the luxury of withdrawing from a fellowship I was awarded for a doctoral degree in Political Science once I had made up my mind to read Law at the University of Oxford.  Remarkable for his insistence on quality, Professor Harris always ensured I did not miss out whenever departmental awards were considered.

            Professor Harris took notice of me when I enrolled in a compulsory course - Introduction to American Government and Politics - which he taught.  The great Professor was quite impressed with my understanding of the subject and the fact that I led his class in it.  He would tell colleagues and whoever cared to know, that I was the first non-American to have led his class in his many years of teaching the subject.  When some Nigerian politicians came to the US to learn more about the then newly-borrowed presidential system of government, Professor Harris insisted I followed him to the forum where he introduced me to my compatriots.

            The thing with Professor Harris was that he would want you to continue to excel once he had believed you were a good student.  At the time I took my Master's Degree in Political Science in 1983, students at the Department of Political Science had tended to prefer the easier option of doing just a research paper to complement their course work for the degree.  Professor Harris talked me into doing a thesis, saying I was a "special student".  The Professor could hardly contain his joy when I successfully defended my thesis before a panel of sophisticated scholars.

            I left Howard University for Oxford in November 1983, taking with me the memory of an exceptional Professor.  It was indeed a great reunion when I visited the United States in 2008 and had to be "lectured" again by my great Professor on why he thought Barrack Obama would win the presidential election of that year.  I felt flattered, even as I was equally proud, when he also sang my praises before my wife and children and other members of the larger Akinola family.

            A generous and one of Howard's most accomplished professors, the great Charles W Harris is in his eighties.  I pay tribute to an exceptional human being, even when writing about the basis of our relationship compels me to reveal what some might misconstrue as an indulgence in self-praise.  Of course this is an autobiographical sketch and what has got to be said must be said.  Writing about the inspirational character that Professor Charles Harris has been to me is a worthy way of commemorating my thirty years this February, of writing for public consumption.

 

Anthony Akinola is a political writer based in Oxford, UK.

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Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
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Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
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512 475 7222  (fax)
http://www.toyinfalola.com/
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa
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