In 1964, Muriel Horrell, compiler of the annual ‘Surveys of Race Relations’ of the South African Institute of Race Relations, was awarded a Carnegie Corporation travel grant to study ‘under-developed communities’ in Africa and the United States. While travelling at this momentous time in history, she kept three detailed journals, two of which form the backbone of this article. The journals provide insight into her interactions with both the Carnegie and the Ford Foundations and into the agendas of these Foundations. While visiting three newly-independent African states, she documented the problems and possibilities afforded by independence. Though intrigued with the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, she remained true to her original goal to study “under-developed communities” but narrowed it to a comparison between Native American Reservations and African Reserves/Homelands, which she used to develop a devastating critique of apartheid policies.