Following this show and many subsequent recitals, Primus toured the nation with The Primus Company. While on the university and college circuit, Primus performed at Fisk University in 1948, where Dr. Charles S. Johnson, a member of Rosenwald Foundation board, was president. He was so impressed with the power of her interpretive African dances that he asked her when she had last visited Africa. She replied that she had never done so. She then became the last recipient of the major Rosenwald fellowships and received the most amount of money ($4000) ever given. After receiving this funding, Primus originally proposed to develop a dance project based on James Weldon Johnsons work "God's Trombones. But instead she decided to conduct an 18-month research and study tour of the Gold Coast, Angola, Cameroons, Liberia, Senegal and the Belgian Congo. On December 5, 1948, dancer Pearl Primus closed a successful return engagement at the Café Society nightclub in New York City before heading off to Africa.