The University of Fort Hare holds a remarkable place not only in African political history, but in the history of higher education across the continent. This history, woven from diverse strands, often starts with Sankoré University in Timbuktu. From the 14th to the 16th Century, Sankoré was a centre for Islamic scholarship in mathematics, science and philosophy, and possessed one of the world’s largest libraries (with up to 700,000 manuscripts).
Africa’s first Western-style university was Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone, founded by Anglican missionaries in 1827. It focused on training teachers and clergymen, and attracted students from across British West Africa. Over the next century, such institutions would appear in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, backed by missionaries and other organisations.
Fort Hare was part of this thread, yet somewhat unusual: it was conceived by an existing community of African intellectuals; and was immediately open to all, regardless of race, class or gender (whereas colleges elsewhere in Africa had sometimes been “for the sons of chiefs”).
Africa’s national universities emerged from the 1950s to 1980s, following independence from colonial rule. In Mozambique and Zimbabwe, for example, colonial “ivory towers” were transformed to serve grassroots needs, with massive training programmes for teachers and agronomists. Again, in this period, Fort Hare was unusual – an island of African nationalist sentiment assaulted by the crashing tides of apartheid.