 Horace Mann Bond, President of Lincoln University and Professor William Leo Hansberry, of Howard University founded Africa-America Institute in 1953 to provide financial assistance and hospitality to Africans studying in the US.As African nations gained independence, AAI offered higher education scholarship programs in the United States to support African scholars in gaining a higher education and skills that could be applied in post-colonial Africa.Its programming expanded to provide academic and professional skills training opportunities for Africans in both the U.S. and Africa in the 1990s.