Emma Hamilton Dancing

Born in 1907 in Fort Portal, West Uganda, Akiki K. Nyabongo was a hereditary prince from the Toro Kingdom who became a scholar, author, pan-Africanist, and political activist. He received his early education at King's College, Budo, East Africa, before coming to the United States. He earned an undergraduate degree from Howard University before enrolling at Yale, followed by a master's degree from Harvard University. Nyabongo received a PhD from Oxford University in 1939, where he was supported by a Rhodes Scholarship. His thesis in anthropology was entitled, “The Religious Practices and Beliefs of Ugandans.”

A noted author and intellectual, Nyabongo published the novel Africa Answers Back (1936), originally published as The Story of an African Chief (1935), based on his own life. The editor of The African Magazine, he was also the author of Bisoro Stories I, Bisoro Stories II, and Wind and Lights: African Fairy Tales, as well as other unpublished works.

An advocate for decolonization and the independence movement in Uganda, Nyabongo collaborated with American civil rights leaders W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul and Eslanda Goode Robeson. His papers are at Queen’s College, Oxford. Nyabongo died in Brooklyn in 1975.