One cloudy, hot morning last week in Leopoldville, capital of the vast Belgian Congo (about four times the size of Texas and 77 times larger than Belgium itself), long lines of natives stood quietly in the dusty streets. Across town, amid the mangoes, palms and cassia trees of the European quarter, far fewer white citizens were similarly lined up. Belgian gradualism was making another cautious move forward, permitting the first elections—for either whites or blacks—to be held in Belgium's fabulously rich (cobalt, uranium, copper, gold) and only colony.
The voting was for...
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