MANDELA: An Audio History
— THE BIRTH OF APARTHEID (1944-1960)

NPR HOST: Ten years ago this week, the world watched as millions of South Africans, most of them jubilant but many wary, cast their ballots in that nation's first multi-racial election. The outcome: Nelson Mandela became President of a new South Africa.

Mandela's journey from freedom fighter to president capped a dramatic half-century long struggle against white rule and the institution of apartheid.

(MONTAGE)

NPR HOST: Today, we begin a five part series by producers Joe Richman and Sue Johnson. The story of the struggle against apartheid told through rare sound recordings, the voice of Nelson Mandela himself as well as those who fought with him — and against him.

NEWSREEL: The program that follows is about the people of South Africa. 1935... 1940... 1945... A nation develops into the premiere industrial power on the African continent.

NEWSREEL 2: The Golden City: South Africa's Johannesburg. Millions of pounds of gold come out of Joburg each year. With this wealth, the people of the city live well and happily. Truly, this is the finest of all the world's golden cities.

EDDIE DANIELS, acTIVIST: As a white citizen you had social status; you had beautiful schools, parks — everything you desire. You had one of the highest standards of living in the world. Blacks were just pushed out.

DENNIS GOLDBERG, activist: The population of South Africa was about ten million. Two million and a bit were whites and dominated everything. There were gold mines and diamond mines with huge economic potential, based on very cheap black labor.

HELEN SUZMAN, former opposition Member of Parliament: It was a master-servant relationship. We had domestic staff who were black, but they lived in their own quarters. They were the nannies and the cleaners and the gardeners.

SONNY VENKATRATHNAM, activist: We were taught that the whites were superior people. And we were told when we were young that if you do good in this life, your next life will become better. I remember promising myself that I'm gonna be a good little boy, so that in the next life I would be a white person. That was my goal in life, and I determined to be a good boy.

(MUSIC: MIRIAM MAKEBA, "MAKE US ONE")

JOE MATTHEWS, activist: By 1940, you had this flood of people coming into the cities. And Mandela went to Johannesburg to work.

(MUSIC FADES)

NELSON MANDELA: I remember when I arrived in Johannesburg in the early forties. The fear, you know, of the power of the white man inhibited us a great deal. And the government was becoming very tough.

NEWSREEL: News from Government House, Pretoria, where South Africa's newly elected Prime Minister, Dr. Malan, was sworn in at the beginning of a new chapter in South Africa's history...

DULLAH OMAR, activist: At the time of the 1948 elections, The Nationalist Party, under D.F. Malan, preached what they called baasskap. Baasskap is an Afrikaans word to express white domination.

PRIME MINISTER D.F. MALAN SPEECH (ARCHIVAL): The color question is rapidly increasing in seriousness and urgency. I consider apartheid — that's the separation policy — to be South Africa's last chance to remain a white man's country.

HELEN SUZMAN: The appeal was survival. The appeal was: we are a small minority on a black continent, and we number so many millions, and the black number X times that many millions. If we are to survive in South Africa — here we are, and we've been here since 1652, we have got to survive — the way to survive is to maintain domination. Simple as that.

NELSON MANDELA: I remember I came out of Park Station that morning and bought a newspaper and learned that the National Party had won. Comrade Oliver Tambo said, "Well, I like this, because we now know that we have an enemy in power. And I think we are going to have a better opportunity of mobilizing our people." So when they came into power, it became clear we were going to be put under a very severe test.

GOVERNMENT MINISTER (ARCHIVAL): In these circumstances, the government has decided on the following measures...

DULLAH OMAR: And immediately after 1948, the apartheid government announced that it was introducing a new series of laws.

HELEN SUZMAN: The Group Areas Act; there was an Immorality Act so that you couldn't have sexual relations across the color line; race classification, which laid down for all time your color and your category — white, colored, Indian, or black. So all these things came in, one after the other.

SONNY VENKATRATHNAM: Where you lived, how you lived, what educational system you're going to go through, the type of jobs you got, where you were going to be buried. Everything from birth to death was determined after the apartheid government came into power.

GOVERNMENT MINISTER (ARCHIVAL): It lays a tremendous responsibility upon those people who govern the country. A responsibility which the white man feels of his duty to help these underdeveloped people who are not capable of governing themselves, who would fall to pieces if we were not there to look after their interests.

(MUSIC)

GOVERNMENT NEWSREEL: The colored man must always carry these passes. Photographs are taken at the offices of the Department of Native Affairs. Daily, a large number turns up here for reference books. Each book contains the photograph of the owner, his name, race, and particulars of employment.

AHMED KATHRADA, activist: They used this crude method of putting a pencil through your hair. If the pencil sticks, then you are black or African. If it falls off, you've got a chance of being classified colored.

GOVERNMENT NEWSREEL: Naturally, the officials who are employed here must have a thorough knowledge of Bantu customs and languages.

(MUSIC ENDS)

NTHATO MOTLANA, activist: Each time you left your home you had to make sure you have a little book in your pocket. If you didn't have that piece of paper, some ignorant, stupid youngster in the police force could stop you and demand that you identify yourself. If you couldn't, they locked you up.

(BELLS)

LUNGI SISULU, activist: At nine o' clock, a big bell would ring. Dong... dong... And you knew that was for you, if you were black, to get out of the white city.

(SINGING: DOROTHY MASUKA, "DR. MALAN")

DOROTHY MASUKA, singer: Dr. Malan has got very strange rules. He is stopping me from doing that and this and the other, in my own land. And people in the street would start singing: "Dr. Malan..."

EDDIE DANIELS: In the 50s, the apartheid structure was tightening. The situation was becoming so much worse, you see.

(SINGING ENDS)

DR NTHATO MOTLANA: The communities, they had been intimidated, cowed down. But we knew. The feeling among the vast majority of people was that this situation cannot continue. We must do something about it.

NEWSREEL: In Johannesburg, premiere city of South Africa, there was staged a move that may lead to civil disobedience. Thousands of colored people went to attend a protest meeting called by the African National Congress. This is the most important African organization in the union. And it called on all colored people to protest against the racial segregation laws. A crowd of some thousands made their way to the meeting.

NELSON MANDELA: We now began to feel that the time had come for the emergence of a mass organization to go out into the highways and organize the masses of people.

LUNGI SISULU: You needed somebody to lead the people. You needed somebody who could make the people believe in the organization. Mandela had what it took to actually be out there in the front, leading the movement.

NEWSREEL: Since then, the Congress leaders have announced that they will decide later this month whether to launch a civil disobedience campaign. This would urge all colored people to break the unjust laws and to court arrest.

(PROTEST)

NELSON MANDELA: And for 8,500 people to be arrested, at the time in 1952, was no small achievement. The mood had been created that our struggle was reaching a dimension where it could not be crushed.

(PROTEST)

AHMED KATHRADA: In 1960, the 21st of March, the PAC (Pan African Congress) had made preparations to launch an anti-pass campaign.

LUNGI SISULU: On this particular day, word went out that all passbooks must be burned — to light up these passes and burn them. The slogan was, "Away with the passes!" The atmosphere was electric. To join in the bonfire, you know, I remember that vividly. As a kid, you always love to see fire. It was fun. But, of course, later in the day we heard...news came over the radio...

GOVERNMENT NEWSCAST: Here is a special announcement. The Governor General has proclaimed a state of emergency in 80 of the 300 magisterial districts...

(SIRENS)

NEWSCAST (WALTER CRONKITE): Several hundred natives gathered peaceably to protest the Pass Laws. Police, mounted on tanks, opened fire. 69 natives were killed, 176 wounded. Most of the victims were shot in the back. Some of the dead were children, women, and elderly men.

LUNGI SISULU: Here were people just marching to the police station to hand over a passbook. And the police opened fire on them. For the first time, it showed the world how brutal the apartheid system could be.

GOVERNMENT NEWSCAST: The Prime Minister assured the country that law and order would be maintained. If necessary, the Defense Force would be called in.

DENNIS GOLDBERG: There was a mood among people, following the Sharpeville massacre, that we had to start dealing with the armed forces of the state; the armed might of the apartheid state.

EDDIE DANIELS: Mr. Mandela then made a statement saying, "How do we combat such a brutal foe? We must consider other methods, other means." The other methods and means was violence. We felt, you know, it just can't continue.

(MUSIC: "WELELE")

"WELELE" (sung in Xhosa): Mandela, don't let the whites undermine us. Help! People are dying. We sleep in the mountains.

Produced by Joe Richman/Radio Diaries and Sue Johnson
Copyright Radio Diaries, 2004
All Things Considered (NPR) Broadcast 4/26/2004

You can find biographical information about the people in this story here.