African Government Bars Return Of Negro Nieman Prize Winner

A South African Negro will leave his country to study here even though it means he can never return.

Lewis Nkosi, a 23-year-old journalist in Johannesburg, was awarded a Nieman Fellowship this year for study at the University. The South African government has agreed to grant him an exit permit provided he signs a declaration that he is leaving permanently.

Earlier this year the Government refused to grant Nkosi's application for a passport. University officials speculated that the Union was retaliating against Nkosi for his attacks on South Africa's apartheid policies.

Condemning the Government's refusal to grant a passport to Nkosi, South Africa's Institute of Race Relations called it an action which "could only once again expose South Africa to world censure." White students have been permitted to leave the country freely.

Nkosi's former employer, the Johannesburg Post, criticized the government's action, saying, "This country now loses the services of a man who would have served his people all the better after his year at a great American university, and the Government gains the world spotlight for an act of spite which will not easily be lived down."

The South African government did not indicate reasons for its sudden change in policy.

Nkosi plans to study magazine writing and recent developments in mass communications theory while at the University. He had earlier expected to arrive in Cambridge by late September.