Xuma, Alfred B. (Alfred Bitini), 1893-1962

Alfred Bitini Xuma (1893–1962), politician and physician in South Africa . Xuma studied at the Tuskegee Institute, Alabama (1914–16), University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, MN, (1920) and Northwestern University in Evanston, IL (1926), as well as Marquette University (1921–1923) and the Lewis Institute, Chicago. He gained experience in obstetrics and gynaecology and surgery with residencies at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and at Pecs University and New St John's Hospital, Budapest, before travelling to Edinburgh; receiving his license to practice medicine in 1927. Xuma then returned to South Africa and opened a medical practice.

A significant figure in the political history of South Africa, Xuma was active with the African National Congress and served in a leadership capacity for many years before his death in 1962.

A full biography, from which the above informed is based, is available in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessed 8/29/2012).

From the guide to the A. B. Xuma papers, undated, 1918-1960, (Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut Libraries)