The students were familiar with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, but I wanted to bring the energy and the stories of the Civil Rights Movement alive to them. I infused the role of music in the movement, as we listened to Mahalia Jackson’s “We Shall Overcome” and Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” so the students could feel the vibe of the movement, and we also listened to clips of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech so the students could hear the passion in Dr. King’s voice and to try to understand why it was such a powerful speech. We viewed a number of classic images from the movement, from the Greensboro 4 to the Little Rock 9, from the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute by Tommie Smith and John Carlos. To help the students better understand the movement, I constantly kept referring back to and connecting individuals and events to South African history, from comparing Martin Luther King, Jr. to Desmond Tutu and comparing the Black Power movement to Black Consciousness in South Africa. This really helped the students to fully understand the Civil Rights Movement. We analyzed song lyrics, political cartoons, and the legacy of specific events, and the students were great with their willingness to participate.

But although the comparisons are typically made both in America and in South Africa comparing the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-apartheid movement, the two situations are very, very different. Sure there were some fundamental similarities, but the two systems were far apart in almost every aspect. The Civil Rights Movement could rely on the Supreme Court and the government, and had the Constitution on their side, while in South Africa the economy, courts, government, police, army, and Constitution were all enforcers of apartheid and of oppression and repression. Desmond Tutu has brought out this difference repeatedly in speeches and writings. In America, there was no Sharpeville massacre, no State of Emergency, no “bannings” or banishments, and no apartheid. But I digress.

After the presentation, many students came up to me and told me how much they enjoyed the presentation and how they really understood the Civil Rights Movement much better now. I was thrilled that the students and their teachers felt that it was very productive and they could definitely take a lot away from it. The students even told me that there were now confident that they would pass this section on their matric exam at the end of the year! The students and I took a few pictures, and I was even asked to sign a few autographs, too (definitely a first). Cheers to the students from Kaelang, Vulamasango, and the other schools…you were a great audience and I hope to work with you more during my time in South Africa!

Kaelang Secondary School presentation - Feb. 23, 2012

Students from Vulamasango Secondary School - Feb. 23, 2012

Mbongeni Ngema studied under Gibson Kente and went on to be one of the most renowned playwrights in South Africa through his popular “township musicals” in the 1980s. It was Ngema who was the writer, composer, and director of the wildly popular hit musical Sarafina! in 1987, which depicted the 1976 Soweto uprising and the subsequent State of Emergency during the 1980s. The musical was turned into a film starring Whoopi Goldberg in 1992 and became an international hit.

This afternoon, I got to see one of Ngema’s musicals at a theater in Bloemfontein – Woza Albert! Translated as “Rise Albert!”, the musical’s style and content was fascinating! Woza Albert! is a two-person show with the two actors playing numerous roles throughout the show, including barbers, policemen, soldiers, laborers, and even Christ himself. The musical first came out in 1981 and is set during apartheid. Using few props and no set changes or fancy stage set-up, the two actors brilliantly used laughter, music, and dance to take you through the degradation of the pass laws and their demeaning effect on Africans. The story focuses on Christ coming back to earth in South Africa during apartheid to the delight of Africans. The Africans are excited to see Christ as he comes to the township and meets with black Africans, and they hope that he can give them a job or to help them in their lives. The actors take on different roles in finding out what people would ask Christ for if he were to come back to earth, all the time depicting realities of life for Africans under apartheid. These conversations include a meat-vendor who sells rotten meat, an old woman who searches garbage cans for food, two men looking for work as day-laborers, and a barber who works in an open-air market. All the while what comes across is a system that has no regard for their human needs, their freedoms, their wives, or their children.

The government, meanwhile, is threatened by this “communist agitator” and has him arrested and sent to Robben Island. Sound familiar? (Nelson Mandela was considered a “communist agitator,” arrested, and eventually sent to Robben Island.) The government thinks they have Christ under control now that he is behind bars on Robben Island, but Christ escapes and is seen walking on water to Cape Town. The government panics and decides to drop a nuclear bomb on him, seemingly killing him and destroying most of Cape Town with it. Yes, the play actually depicts the apartheid government dropping a nuclear bomb on a resurrected Christ! (quite subtle message on the apartheid government’s morality, right?). The play ends with Christ resurrecting again, this time in a cemetery where is he looking for Lazarus (whom Jesus raised from the dead in the New Testament), and he raises from the dead a number of heroes from the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, including Steve Biko, Lilian Ngoyi, Robert Sobukwe, and Albert Luthuli (hence the name, “Rise Albert!”), while refusing to resurrect Hendrik Verwoerd, the former leader of South Africa and one of the architects of apartheid. These struggle leaders are resurrected in an effort to bring them back to the people in a powerful ending, and really becomes a call for new leaders to emerge against apartheid in the tradition of these fallen heroes.

This play was incredibly powerful, even in 2012, 18 years after the end of apartheid. At the time the play was written, most leaders were either imprisoned or deceased. The one free leader, Bishop Desmond Tutu, is mentioned in the play as one of the first people with whom Christ meets upon his arrival.

Of all of the creative ways that people opposed apartheid in South Africa, Black Theater ranks right at the top. The talent of the two actors, the creativity of the script, and the innovative way of educating the people about social and political issues make this an amazing show! It is great that these plays are being resurrected now in South Africa to keep this unique piece of culture and history alive.

Woza Albert!

This has been one facet of the anti-apartheid movement that has most intrigued me so far because Afrikaners as a people commonly get lumped in together. But if there were dissidents in the Afrikaans community, they should be widely celebrated as they arguably had the most to lose in not supporting apartheid. All they had to do was stay quiet and toe the line and they would have greatly benefited from this system of enforced racism. Afrikaners had the most to lose if they chose to rebel and speak out against apartheid, and therefore those who did resist should be heroes to all of us.

I soon started coming across the names of some of these incredibly brave Afrikaner men and women and I have been absolutely amazed. The courage of these individuals to risk their lives to stand up for what they believed is inspirational to say the least. Not only did some Afrikaners resist apartheid and Afrikaner nationalism, but by doing so many were disowned by their families, kicked out of their churches, considered traitors by their people, imprisoned, tortured, and even killed. Bram Fischer, Beyers Naude, Ingrid Jonker, Andre Brink, Breyten Breytenbach, Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, Max du Preez and his Vrye Weekblad newspaper, Koos Kombuis and the Voëlvry musicians, and Carl Niehaus, just to name a few.

These individuals put their lives on the line and spoke out against apartheid in the courts, the church, the press, and in music, literature, and politics. Bram Fischer rebelled by defending the likes of Nelson Mandela and others when they were on trial for their lives. Beyers Naude rebelled through his church sermons, believing that apartheid did not have the Biblical backing that most Afrikaner nationalists believed it had. Ingrid Jonker, Andre Brink, and Breyten Breytenbach were just a few of the Afrikaner writers and poets who rebelled through their pens and with their words. Frederik van Zyl Slabbert rebelled as a politician in the opposition to the National Party. Max du Preez rebelled through his progressive anti-apartheid Afrikaans newspaper, Vrye Weekblad. The Voëlvry musicians rebelled through their radical Afrikaans rock music. And Carl Niehaus rebelled by joining the African National Congress and working for the freedom of all South Africans. These are just a few of the amazing individuals who showed not only South Africans, but also the world, that not all Afrikaners were Afrikaner nationalists. Not all Afrikaners supported apartheid, and their stories of courage need to be told more loudly and frequently.

Why is this important? For Afrikaners, it is important to know that there were people who were courageous enough to risk their lives for the rights of others. They are the conscious of the Afrikaner people. It shows that not all Afrikaners can be blamed for apartheid, just like not all Germans can be blamed for atrocities of the Nazi Party. It gives young Afrikaners heroes to look up to in their past as they can now look back at the history of their people and the country and see that there were Afrikaners who risked their lives for what was right. It also shows the people of South Africa, especially the non-Afrikaners, the danger of condemning an entire group of people for the scourge of apartheid. I have heard people frequently blame all Afrikaners for apartheid without any mention of the specific political party that ushered it in – the National Party – or of the specific ideology that believed in it – Afrikaner nationalism. Just as dangerous as it is to say all Germans were Nazis, it is equally dangerous to say all Afrikaners supported apartheid.

The Afrikaners who did join in the fight against apartheid deserve special mention in the history of the anti-apartheid movement and in South Africa’s fight for democracy. To them I say, in Afrikaans, “baie dankie!”

South Africa is a perfect example of the power and influence music can have on society. From the numerous freedom songs to N’kosi Sikelel’ iAfrica, from Miriam Makeba to Ladysmith Black Mambazo, music played an important role throughout the struggle for freedom in South Africa. In American history, African American musicians have provided the inspiration to fight for rights from the Jim Crow era, through the Civil Rights Movement, and up through the inauguration of President Obama.

To better understand the contributions of African Americans to American history, I picked a number of songs from different artists and genres to take the students from the 1930s through the first decade of the 2000s. From Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” to James Brown’s “Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)” to Tupac’s “Keep Ya Head Up,” the students learned about how music impacted the masses and lead to calls for social and political change. The students seemed to really enjoy it as we watched music videos, analyzed lyrics, and broke down what the artists wanted to see changed in society. Their favorite was Tupac, which they all seemed to like but they never thought about the influence of his lyrics in a song like “Keep Ya Head Up,” and they really seemed to enjoy The Freedom Singers’ “If You Miss Me At The Back of the Bus,” too. The students were great as they participated in the discussion with their comments and input, interpreting the meaning of the lyrics and citing similarities and differences amongst the songs, even with the language differences and their limited knowledge of American history. They also were able to make a number of connections to South African history, as well. It was a great success and I really enjoyed my time with the students from Navalsig High School.

Before we got into the music, we discussed a few questions, including:
• Why is music an ideal vehicle for social criticism and political protest?
• How can music mobilize people to action?
• What role should musicians take in protesting or trying to influence society and politics?

While listening to all of the songs, we kept coming back to a number of key questions in our discussion, which included:
• What are the risks the artist took to write and sing the song?
• What issues or problems is the song dealing with?
• What is the attitude and feeling that the singer/group is conveying?

I left off with challenging the students to think about the following:
• What is one current song that you know that deals with social or political issues in society, either in South Africa or anywhere in the world? What issue or problem does it focus on?
• What issue would you focus on if you were to write a protest song?

Then I left them with the task of writing their own protest song on an issue that they were concerned about and wanted to see changed or addressed in society. Hopefully the students went away not only with a better understanding of the influence music has had in African Americans’ struggle for equality, but also the power music can have to be more than just entertainment in an effort to bring about change in society in general.

Cheers to the great students of Navalsig High School in Bloemfontein.

Happy Black History Month!

Black History Month presentation at the Bloemfontein Public Library - Feb. 10, 2012

Many leaders of the struggle lived in Kimberley and the surrounding areas, including Sol Plaatje, one of the founders of the ANC and an early pioneer for African rights, Robert Sobukwe, a prominent anti-apartheid activist and leader of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), and community leader Phakamile Harry Mabija. I had the amazing opportunity to meet and hear the history of Galeshewe from Rev. Amos Matthews, whose uncle was Z.K. Matthews, who was a prominent anti-apartheid activist in the 1940s through 1960s. Z.K. Matthews was a professor at the famous Fort Hare University, was a leader in the ANC, helped to organize the Congress of the People in 1955 and even helped to write the Freedom Charter, and was one of the Treason Trialists in the 1950s along with Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and others. To hear about the realities of life under apartheid from the nephew of Z.K. Matthews was truly a remarkable experience. Rev. Matthews was at the 1952 Mayibuye Uprising in Galeshewe as a young child and told me about his memories of the people protesting against apartheid in the march that ended in a massacre as the police opened fire on the people in the street, killing 22 people and wounding over 70. Rev. Matthews recalled the chaos once the police opened fire on the crowd and seeing the street laden with the dead and the wounded in a scene similar to the Sharpeville massacre eight years later. The Mayibuye Uprising is commemorated in Galeshewe with a giant sculpture of a fist with a thumb up, the symbol of mayibuye, which means “come back” or “rise up”, and was usually said “Mayibuye iAfrica” (Africa must come back, or Africa rise up). There is also a massive mural on the outside of the Abantu Hall in Galeshewe depicting the massacre in graphic detail. Columns of stones surround the memorial as a tribute to the protestors who fought with stones against the bullets of the police. Rev. Matthews recalled marching days later with the community to the funeral of those killed to the nearby cemetery, which Nelson Mandela attended. As he showed me the Abantu Hall, where political meetings were held from the 1930s up through the end of apartheid, Rev. Matthews told me that he once listened to Robert Sobukwe and other speak there. Sobukwe, after being released from Robben Island, was banished to Galeshewe and lived there under house arrest from 1969 to his death in 1978. Sobukwe’s home and law office are still in the town and I was lucky enough to be able to see them, as well. Rev. Matthews even showed me an old apartheid-era prison in Galeshewe in which the prison cells reminded me of a medieval dungeon. Rev. Matthews shared his experiences of the degradation of having to carry a pass with him at all times, and knowing that you could be arrested and detained at any time for simply being African. On the outside of the former prison was another mural depicting the 1977 bus boycott in Kimberley, organized by Phakamile Harry Mabija, ad a depiction of the death of Mabija in police detention in Kimberley by being thrown from a 6th floor window. Mabija was a well known teacher and community organizer, and was just 28 years old when he was murdered in police custody, something that unfortunately happened to many young leaders, including Steve Biko in the same year. It was a graphic depiction of his death, and a quote from Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” accompanied it in a fitting way: “How long must they kill our prophets, while we stand aside and look…”

It was a great honor to get to meet Rev. Matthews and hear from him what life was like under apartheid. In his lifetime he has seen so many changes in South Africa, from apartheid coming into effect in 1948 to the uprisings of the 1950s to the rise of the resistance in the 1970s and eventually to the end of apartheid and a free and democratic South Africa in 1994. He, like so many of his generation, survived the brutality of apartheid and lived through everything that I have been reading about for the past 8 months or so. It was a great history lesson for me, and one that I’ll never forget.

Rev. Amos Matthews and I at the Mayibuye uprising memorial in Galeshewe