July 15, 2011; Source: Financial Times | Since it was first established in 1961 “the Africa Centre was a place where anyone could eat, drink, dance, read and talk all things Africa under one (increasingly leaky) roof.” As an endorsement second to none, the story points out that Archbishop Desmond Tutu refers to the Africa Centre as “a home from home.” News earlier in the year that the organization’s board of trustees was planning to sell the building has produced an opposition movement supported by arts and business leaders for whom the building has become a “kind of symbol of Africa in the wider world.”
According to the story, board members who support the sale believe that preserving the center’s building would be prohibitively expensive and as such relocating and creating an endowment fund would be preferable options. Graeme Jennings, a consultant who has worked with the board to find alternative space, described t