Annual meeting of the (American) African Studies Association: Boston, 21-24 October 1970

Unlike the 1969 meeting at Montreal there was no disruption of academic discussion or general meetings, and no threat of violence, racial or otherwise. What was evident at Boston was a thoughtful and constructive effort to find through discussion a common meeting ground. The four-day meeting had a curious dual existence, combining intense plenary sessions, discussing the very rationale and future of the organisation, with largely academic panels for the presentation of mostly scholarly papers. The Boston meeting posed more questions than it answered and left the fate of the A.S.A. and its November 1971 meeting at Denver very much open.