The Kennedy Airlift

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The Kennedy Airlift was a program that brought hundreds of students from East Africa to study in the United States and Canada between 1959 to 1963. Kenyan Tom Mboya and the African-American Students Foundation (AASF) started the program to allow promising Kenyan students to receive college and university educations in the United States and Canada, and was supported by many North American educational institutions, foundations, and individuals including Harry Belafonte, Jackie Robinson, Sidney Poitier, and Martin Luther King Jr. It got its popular nickname in September 1960 when Senator John F. Kennedy in a close presidential campaign arranged a $100,000 donation from the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr Foundation to cover airfare for the autumn 1960 group of East African students just as the program was running out of funds.