A memorial service for Leonard M. Thompson, the Charles J. Stillé Professor of History Emeritus, will take place at 2 p.m. on Friday, May 20, at Dwight Chapel, 67 High St. A reception will follow.
Thompson, a leading scholar in Southern African history and politics, died in June 2004 after a brief illness. He taught at Yale from 1969 to 1986 and was the founding director of the Yale Southern African Research Program. Thompson directed the program from its inception in 1977 until 1994.
A prolific scholar, Thompson was the author of dozens of articles and numerous books, including "The Unification of South Africa" and "Survival in Two Worlds: Moshoeshoe of Lesotho, 1786-1870." The latter -- the first major biography devoted to the life of an African leader -- departed from the then-prevailing methodology by placing great emphasis on the use of oral sources. He was a contributor to and co-editor of the two-volume "Oxford History of South Africa," which was considered pathbreaking for its emphasis on the role of Africans in Southern African history. His other books include "The Frontier in History," which he co-edited with Yale colleague Howard R. Lamar; and "South African Politics; The Political Mythology of Apartheid."
Another book, "A History of South Africa," is now in its third edition. Of this work, Anglican Archbishop and Nobel Prizewinner Desmund Tutu said: "I did not think it was possible to write a history of South Africa which a black South African would find to be a fair and accurate account of a beautiful land and its people. Leonard Thompson disabused me of that notion. His is a history that is both accurate and authentic. ..."
At the time of his death, Thompson was working on a book for the Yale Press comparing the successes and failures of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.
Born in England in 1916, Thompson was educated there and in South Africa. He completed his university studies at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University from 1937 to 1939.
At the start of World War II, Thompson volunteered for the Royal Navy and was commissioned as a lieutenant. He served as the senior navigating officer for groups of small ships in the north and south Atlantic. He won several medals for distinguished service.
After the war, Thompson taught at the University of Capetown, where he rose to become the King George V Professor of History.
A lifelong opponent of racial discrimination and apartheid, Thompson was a founding member of the South Africa Liberal Party in the 1950s. He left South Africa in 1961 in the wake of the 1960 Sharpville massacres, when police opened fire on demonstrators. Thompson first came to the United States as a visiting professor at Duke University, then accepted a permanent professorship at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he founded the African History Program.
A prize is being established in the Department of History in Thompson's memory. It will recognize an outstanding doctoral dissertation in African history in any given year. Contributions, which should be earmarked specifically for the Leonard M. Thompson Memorial Prize, should be sent to the Department of History, c/o L. Joyner, business manager, Yale University, P.O. Box 208324, New Haven, CT 06520-8324.
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