The Life of Madie Hall Xuma by Wanda A. Hendricks

Author:Wanda A. Hendricks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography / General
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2022-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

She praised the African Academy of Arts and Research for “accomplishing a great deal in interpreting Africa to the American people” and told the audience, “I am happy that I was invited to visit with you today and to learn that you have purchased this beautiful building, known as AFRICA HOUSE. This is a challenge to us in Africa. I shall carry this challenge back with me. I assure you ladies and gentlemen that there will be an Africa House in South Africa.”22

The following Thursday, October 16, she fulfilled Xuma’s second request by heading to the UN Assembly gathered at Lake Success, New York, from September 16 to November 29, 1947. She was most interested in the status of South African prime minister Jan Smuts. The crushing defeat for Smuts that had erupted in 1946 with a contingent made up of her husband and Indian leaders continued to make waves at the meeting in 1947. The South African Indian delegation that attacked Smuts for the government’s repressive record had gained the strong support of India, a country whose leaders demanded that the United Nations “block the persecution of the Indian minority in the Union of South Africa.”23 Smuts’s defiant refusal to adhere to the United Nations’ recommendation against the annexation of Southwest Africa encouraged the Chicago Defender to declare it “the first test case of the power of the General Assembly over nations which fail or refuse to carry out its recommendations.” Ultimately, Hall Xuma could report back to Xuma that the majority of delegates rebuked Smuts’s rejection of placing the territory under UN trusteeship.24

Her unscheduled reappearance in the city was greeted by Black elites with excitement. One of them threw an elaborate event that included serving a six-course dinner to honor her and a businessman from Bermuda. Her friends Alva and Charles Kimbrough were among the guests who attended and basked in the conversation about “customs and traditions in Bermuda and South Africa” and viewed the two movies Americans All that promoted South American countries and links to the United States and King Solomon’s Mines that detailed the experiences of a cast that included Paul Robeson searching for riches in South African diamond mines. For the occasion, one newspaper reported that she appeared “radiant in a ballerina creation fashioned by Mary Richardson out of black net picturesquely embroidered with black straw.” Guests were quite interested in the fact that “the material, made in Europe but brought here from Africa by Mme. Xuma, is an exact copy of the pattern worn by Queen Elizabeth when the Royal Family visited Africa recently.”25

In the weeks that followed, she embarked on a full schedule of presentations, such as the twelfth annual National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Clubs convention held at the YWCA in New York City, in other cities nearby, and in Newark, New Jersey.26 Then, as she made her way down the Eastern Seaboard, she also stopped in Washington to honor Bethune’s invitation to attend the NCNW’s twelfth annual conference.

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