Dawson with his field recording equipment in West Africa, 1952.

In 1952 Dawson received a year-long sabbatical from Tuskegee to travel to West Africa and study its musical forms. That year, Dawson visited villages across West Africa in Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Gold Coast (now Ghana), Nigeria, Senegal, and Dahomey (now Benin). "I am learning so much about the meaning this music, singing, and drumming hold for these people," he wrote to his wife. "If I had to return this very moment, I would feel that my trip had been a huge success." (archival materials).