Bantu Stephen Biko was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known as the Black Consciousness Movement during the late 1960s and 1970s. His ideas were articulated in a series of articles published under the pseudonym Frank Talk.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, also known as Winnie Mandela, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation".
General Magnus André de Merindol Malan was a South African military figure and politician during the last years of apartheid in South Africa. He served respectively as Minister of Defence in the cabinet of President P. W. Botha, Chief of the South African Defence Force (SADF), and Chief of the South African Army. Rising quickly through the lower ranks, he was appointed to strategic command positions. His tenure as chief of the defence force saw it increase in size, efficiency and capabilities. As P.W. Botha's cabinet minister, he posited a total communist onslaught, for which an encompassing national strategy was devised. This entailed placing policing, intelligence and aspects of civic affairs under control of generals. The ANC and SWAPO were branded as terrorist organizations, while splinter groups were bolstered in neighbouring and Frontline States. Cross-border raids targeted suspected bases of insurgents or activists, while at home the army entered townships from 1984 onwards to stifle unrest. Elements in the Inkhata Freedom Party were used as a proxy force, and rogue soldiers and policemen in the CCB assassinated opponents.
Cry Freedom is a 1987 epic apartheid drama film directed and produced by Richard Attenborough, set in late-1970s apartheid-era South Africa. The screenplay was written by John Briley based on a pair of books by journalist Donald Woods. The film centres on the real-life events involving South African activist Steve Biko and his friend Donald Woods, who initially finds him destructive, and attempts to understand his way of life. Denzel Washington stars as Biko, while Kevin Kline portrays Woods. Cry Freedom delves into the ideas of discrimination, political corruption, and the repercussions of violence.
The Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, meaning "Afrikaner Resistance Movement", commonly known by its abbreviation AWB, is an Afrikaner nationalist, neo-Nazi, and white supremacist paramilitary organisation in South Africa. Since its founding in 1973 by Eugène Terre'Blanche and six other far-right Afrikaners, it has been dedicated to secessionist Afrikaner nationalism and the creation of an independent Boer-Afrikaner republic or "Volkstaat/Boerestaat" in part of South Africa. During bilateral negotiations to end apartheid in the early 1990s, the organisation terrorised and killed black South Africans.
Necklacing is a method of extrajudicial summary execution and torture carried out by forcing a rubber tire drenched with petrol around a victim's chest and arms, and setting it on fire. The term "necklace" originated in the 1980s in black townships of apartheid South Africa where suspected collaborators were publicly executed in this fashion.
Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was characterized by an authoritarian political culture based on baasskap, which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically by the nation's minority white population. According to this system of social stratification, white citizens had the highest status, followed by Indians and Coloureds, then black Africans. The economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day.
The Soweto uprising was a series of demonstrations and protests led by black school children in South Africa that began on the morning of 16 June 1976.
Craig Michael Williamson, is a former South African Police major who was exposed as a spy in 1980, and was involved in a series of state-sponsored overseas bombings, burglaries, kidnappings, assassinations and propaganda during the apartheid era.
The Kairos Document (KD) is a theological statement issued in 1985 by a group of mainly black South African theologians based predominantly in the townships of Soweto, South Africa. The document challenged the churches' response to what the authors saw as the vicious policies of the apartheid regime under the state of emergency declared on 21 July 1985. The KD evoked strong reactions and furious debates not only in South Africa, but world-wide.
Gugulethu is a township in the Western Cape, South Africa and is 15 km from Cape Town. Its name is a contraction of igugu lethu, which is Xhosa for our pride. The township was established along with Nyanga in the 1960s.
Come Back, Africa is a 1959 film, the second feature-length film written, produced, and directed by American independent filmmaker Lionel Rogosin. The film had a profound effect on African cinema, and remains of great historical and cultural importance as a document preserving the heritage of the townships in South Africa in the 1950s. It may be classified as reportage, documentary, historical movie or political cinema, since it portrays real events and people. On the other hand, it reveals an interpretation of meaningful social facts and a strong ethical assumption towards human behaviours like racism.
Waiting for the Rain is a young adult novel by South African-born American writer Sheila Gordon, first published in 1987. It tells the story of two boys, one black and one white, growing up on a farm in South Africa during apartheid. As the boys mature, their friendship dissipates because the black boy seeks political equality while the white boy wants everything to stay the same.
Corrective rape, also called curative or homophobic rape, is a hate crime in which one or more people are raped because of their perceived sexual orientation such as homosexuality or bisexuality. The common intended consequence of the rape, as claimed by the perpetrator, is to turn the person heterosexual.
The rate of sexual violence in South Africa is among the highest recorded in the world. During 2015/16, there were 51,895 crimes of a sexual nature reported to the South African Police Service.
Frank B. Wilderson III is an American writer, dramatist, filmmaker and critic. He is a full professor of drama and African American studies at the University of California, Irvine. He received his BA in government and philosophy from Dartmouth College, his Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University and his PhD in rhetoric and film studies from the University of California, Berkeley.
Racism in South Africa has existed throughout the history of South Africa. Before universal suffrage was achieved in 1994, white South Africans, especially Afrikaners during the period of Apartheid, enjoyed various legally or socially sanctioned privileges and rights which were denied to others. Examples of racism over the course of South Africa's history include forced removals, racial segregation, uneven resource distribution, and disenfranchisement. Racial politics remain a major phenomenon.
Since its formation in 2008, the Social Justice Coalition has worked to advance the constitutional rights to life, dignity, equality, freedom and safety for all people, but especially those living in informal settlements across South Africa. While these rights are protected and promoted by our constitution, people do not feel them in their every day lives. Founded in 2008, the SJC is a membership-based social movement made up of 12 branches, located mainly in informal settlements across Khayelitsha, Cape Town. Our campaigns are based on ongoing research, education, and advocacy and divided across two programmes. The Local Government Programme leads the work on sanitation, budgets, and urban land. The Safety and Justice Programme is focused on policing and the criminal justice system.
The Creators: South Africa Through the Eyes of Its Artists is a 2012 South African documentary film produced and directed by Laura Gamse which interweaves the lives of diverse South African artists including Faith47, Cashril+, Warongx, Emile Jansen of Black Noise, Markus Wormstorm and Spoek Mathambo of Sweat.X, Blaq Pearl, and Mthetho Mapoyi.
Siphiwe Mvuyane was a South African police officer who died on 9 May 1993. During the period of "low intensity warfare" in South Africa which largely pitted the African National Congress (ANC) and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Siphiwe Mvuyane was on the side of the IFP. During the period of the "low intensity warfare", the IFP was the sole ruling party of the Bantustan KwaZulu government, and worked in collaboration with the apartheid government, whereas the ANC was operating underground; as a result the IFP had an upper hand over the ANC when it came to the warfare. But post apartheid, the African National Congress (ANC) became the governing party in South Africa whereas the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) became one of the opposition parties in the South African parliament, as a result the ANC gained the upper hand over the IFP in the remaining years of the warfare as the ANC was in control of the state apparatus by virtue of being the governing party. The IFP leadership denied its involvement in sanctioning and orchestrating political violence in the furtherance of its political objectives during the period of the "low intensity warfare" in South Africa.
