"Late jam sessions, midnight until unconscious," advertised one nightclub. In Freetown's magnificent harbor, gaily painted paddle boats carrying names like God Never Hurries staged a regatta. To the beat of tom-toms, 150 bare-breasted girls snaked past Sierra Leone's Prime Minister, Sir Milton Margai, and his guests of honor: Britain's Duke of Kent, Liberia's William Tubman, Nigeria's Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, U.S. Special Representative Thurgood Marshall. At midnight some 15,000 celebrators jammed Freetown's stadium, sang the hymn Lead, Kindly Light, watched as spotlights dimmed on the Union Jack atop the flagpole, cheered ten seconds later as a new green, white and...
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