ANC rally in Grahamstown, South Africa, 1990
After finishing school, I was lucky enough to attend Rhodes University in 1990. I had been shooting for many years, but more as a teenager taking pics of my day to day life in Johannesburg. Being away from my family and sharing a res with friends gave me a new found freedom and awareness of life in different places and conditions in our country.
Apartheid was still prevalent under the National Party white rule in South Africa, a state of being I began to be aware of since I first recognized a difference in the way people were living and working in about 1978 (my first memory of driving past Soweto township and asking my folks why so many people lived in tin shacks and in such bad conditions). I was never actively political but spend my younger years learning about Apartheid and how our government had dispossessed African people for so long…a brutal regime which scarred people for generations (we still grapple with racism and poverty after so many decades since 1994).
In about March 1990, I was invited to join some friends for a freedom rally in Vukani township, just on the edge of Grahamstown. These townships were allocated to the African population during Apartheid to keep the local populations separate from each other, whilst allowing space for Africans to access and work for the adjacent town (thus Apart-heid). On growing up, for a white person to visit a township was generally frowned upon and we were indoctrinated by fear of crime and threats to us to keep us away. My visit that day began a process to dispel that fear and a lot of inherited dogma which I had grown up with.
Four friends and I jumped into my VW City Golf and headed to the rally. We were all young and a bit nervous on visiting the township, our old fears and blindness still a factor…but the most amazing surprises and joy of being welcomed and treated well when we arrived. We spend the afternoon listening to the speeches, talking to the people we met and enjoying the company. The children were so full of energy, even through they had so little, they were full of hope and optimism. I still feel privileged to have been able to document and capture some of the mood and feeling of that day.
My biggest pleasure then and for each time I have visited friends in townships was how people were so welcoming to our presence, never leaving me feeling unsafe and in the wrong place…I think we were welcomed and respected by coming to visit people where they lived and to interact in their communities…the level of pride in what they had built and their hopes for integration into all the surrounding communities. I truly felt like a South African and this trip was a major step forward to me in opening my eyes and heart to the greater humanity of our beautiful country.
We still struggle today on South Africa, with a whole new set of issues confronting us, but the opening of our political and social space to all races was a huge step forward to us…allowing us to get to know each other.
I still look at the photos I took that day and wonder what became of the children and people I photographed, thirty four years later…I hope that each one discovered a good life for themselves and their friends.
