The Coloured Gangster
In Cape Town, gangs have come to dominate social and economic life for the city’s mostly coloured working class.
500 Search Result(s) for: “apartheid”
A Metaphorical Biography
Santu Mofokeng’s photographs keep you wanting to know who are these people, what's their sophistications, and what's going to happen to these aspirations?
The end of revolutionary radio in South Africa?
Bush Radio, "The Mother of Community Radio in Africa," is in financial trouble. Give them all your money.
In the back and in the side
South Africa’s Human Rights Day (originally Sharpeville Day) holds a special place in the nation’s history.
A debased tradition
What continuities can be drawn from the murder of Ahmed Timol in apartheid Johannesburg to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis?
The legacy of violence in the struggle for South Africa
An excerpt of an essay, titled “Nongoloza’s Ghost,” in Lapham’s Quarterly. It's published in partnership with Africa Is a Country.
Joe Slovo is still one of my heroes
Slovo was a key leader of the armed and exiled resistance against Apartheid and one of the most visible white face of that movement, even after apartheid.
Apartheid is not truly behind us
It makes perfect sense for the City of Cape Town to name one of the city's busiest roads after F.W. de Klerk.
An undignified democracy
Three decades after apartheid, South Africans are still waiting for housing, land, and dignity—while elites ask for patience that serves only themselves.
The mine dumps of Silicon Valley
While it might be cathartic to compare Elon Musk’s tech firms to apartheid-era mines, the connection between ex-South Africans and American capitalism is complicated.
A tribute to Ron Dellums, radical
Former US Congressman and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, who passed away recently, played a leading role in the global fight against South African Apartheid in the 1980s.
Speaking as one African to another
South African anti-apartheid revolutionary Robert Sobukwe is often understood as a black nationalist. So what should we make of his close friendship with a white liberal?
The Erasure of Dulcie September
South African activist Dulcie September would have turned 84 today had she not been assassinated in March 1988. The podcast series They Killed Dulcie revisits the murder and her legacy.
Soft targets
What was behind the assassinations in the 1980s of two key anti-apartheid figures: Swedish Prime Minister, Olof Palme, and senior ANC official, Dulcie September?
Punks of the Witwatersrand
The Rise and Fall of National Wake, South Africa’s first multiracial punk band at the height of apartheid, that sang about state violence and political freedoms.
The mourning of a man, the mirror of a nation
Charlie Kirk was not a household name in South Africa. Yet, as evidenced by the local outpouring of grief that followed his death, South Africans must confront the truth: his ideas were already at home.
Africa’s First Lady
Winnie was everything Africans - and African women in particular - were not supposed to be.
The emperor has no clothes
South Africa’s most famous monarch holds fast to power and prestige at no cost to himself.
Schooling desegregation and decolonization are not the same thing
Constant attention to segregation in formerly white South African schools limits our understanding of how race works in the school system.
Laughing pains
Stand-up comedy, especially black stand-up, and the political in South Africa.