"Do You Have Snakes?"

Coming on their own or under fellowships and exchange programs, about 1,600 dark-skinned students from African nations are enrolled this year in U.S. colleges and universities. To catalogue their achievements and their difficulties, Manhattan's Institute of International Education undertook a six-month survey and last week announced the results. Among the survey's findings: most of the African students reported that they had suffered some sort of discrimination from white Americans--and a surprising 63% also said that they had experienced friction with U.S. Negroes.

Behind that statistic lay a lot of heartache. Some of the Africans attribute the difficulty to simple jealousy on the part of U.S. Negroes. Said Freddie Balogun Savage, a Stanford student from Sierra Leone: "By putting on native clothes or simply uttering a few words in our exotic accents, my wife Sylvia and I can move out from the ranks of American Negroes. But there's more to it than that. With my training in political science I've already been assured an assistant secretaryship in the foreign ministry back home. Sylvia's M.A. in education assures a fine teaching post for her. What is a Ph.D. worth to one of your Negroes?"

Recalled an African student at Northwestern University: "When I first came to Chicago I was very interested in American Negroes and their difficulties. I wanted to show solidarity with oppressed brothers, that sort of thing. So I took the elevated to the South Side one night. There were many lights, which dazzled me, and many people about, which rather frightened me. I went into a bar and listened to the talk and understood little enough. When I finally tried to enter the conversation, no one understood what I was saying at first. Then they all started laughing at my accent. One Negro man, who was very big and rough looking, began saying nasty things. I left and never tried again."

The Africans also resent the fact that many U.S. Negroes look on them as curiosities straight from the African jungle. Said Sunday Nwokorie, a Nigerian studying at Atlanta University: "When I came here, Negro students asked me how many wives I had. Was I a village chief? Did I have snakes in my room? I found these questions were not intended to offend me. It was merely ignorance," Added Andrew Makhene of South Africa, another student at Atlanta University: "I have met several white college students in the South, and they never ask me such silly questions."

But American Negroes have their own case to present: to them, the Africans sometimes seem deliberately aloof. Says LeRoy Bolden, a Negro who was an All-America halfback at Michigan State in 1953 and is now doing research at Stanford: "Most of these Africans are high ranking, chiefs' sons or others with the contacts needed to line up an American education. They want to identify themselves with the group on top--and that's not us. Try calling one a Negro. Chances are he'll correct you by saying 'I'm an African.' "

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