 Because of apartheid he left in the 1960s South Africa for England, and thanks to a scholarship went to Keele University where he obtained a first class degree in economics, history and politics.He successively taught in the Government Department of Manchester University between 1978 and 1990.From 1991 till his death he was professor of political science and African politics at the University of Rochester, and since 1995 also acting director of the University's Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies.