• From Bamako to Nanjing: Oussouby Sacko spent five years at Southeast University in Nanjing, arriving in China in 1985. | NICHOLAS SEAGREAVES
    From Bamako to Nanjing: Oussouby Sacko spent five years at Southeast University in Nanjing, arriving in China in 1985. | NICHOLAS SEAGREAVES
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As I was preparing the third installment in my ongoing series on the academic curation of “blackness” here in Japan, there was some breaking news of a related nature: Kyoto Seika University announced that Oussouby Sacko, a Mali national, would be its next president.

In doing so, it seems Kyoto Seika has set a historic precedent. According to the education ministry, Sacko is believed to be the first person of African descent to become president of a university in Japan. Wow, right?

I immediately made contact with Sacko and, serendipitously, he just happened to be en route to Tokyo on some business and eager to meet and share his story with Black Eye.

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