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Black Consciousness

latest news & developments

The names Robben Island refuses to let history forget

The Robben Island Museum's Wall of Remembrance is restoring the names and legacies of unsung apartheid-era political prisoners, including Black Consciousness activist Lusiba…

A new struggle: The 1976 pupils wanted to dismantle Bantu education. The 2016 #FeesMustFall students, wanting a seat at Wits and UCT, were fighting for access to a system 1976 rejected. File Photo

The Arc betrayed

The 1976 generation fought against Bantu Education for liberation, but their grandchildren, born after 1994, navigate a different landscape. This article explores whether the…

Andile Mngxitama: Sipho Singiswa thought he had found a vulnerability in my consistent Black Consciousness armour. Photo: Supplied

Right of Reply: Andile Mngxitama

We buried a young black man with heavy hearts. The two collected prizes drenched in the blood of a black man. That is what stands out in our minds when we see them. Justice for…

“White Privilege, Black Pain: The Power of Race in Democratic South Africa” by Kim Heller – published by @xarrabooks

Andile Mngxitama’s inconsistency and the politics of denigration and opportunism

I remain close to the places where ordinary black life meets the police, the farmer, the mine and the state face to face. That ground has no patience for fashionable radicalism.…

Brics, the GNU and the erasure of African consciousness

The judiciary and legal academy entrenched the same exclusion. They protected the existing order through property law, constitutional abstraction and procedural sanctity. They…

Mashatile honours Mosiuoa Lekota as a giant who carried the torch of freedom

Known for speaking truth to power, Lekota’s contributions to democracy, education and social development have left an indelible mark on South Africa’s journey toward equality and…

Brigding the gap: Khaya Mahlangu belongs to a long lineage of musicians who helped shape a distinctly
South African Afro-fusion sound. Photo: Supplied

The bassists who built Soweto’s distinct sound

The story of South African jazz-fusion is incomplete without the bassists whose innovations quietly carried the music forward

Dance is music: Lighting by Oliver Hauser and set design by Willy Cesar foreground space, line and form.
Everything, Maqoma says, is architectural. Photo: Arthur Dlamini

Gregory Maqoma’s ‘Genesis’ is not an ending

The renowned choreographer returns to the Baxter not as performer but architect, with Genesis, a daring meditation on beginnings, endings and Black consciousness

A sea of blue memorial peace race participants were ferried by dozens of boats to take part in the third annual
10km run and walk hosted by the Robben Island Museum Council. Photo: Marlan Padayachee

Bittersweet return to Robben Island

For decades, the island was a towering emblem of punishment—first for enslaved labourers and lepers under colonial rule and later for the anti-apartheid resisters who dared to…

Black consciousness: Liberate black people from ‘the zone of non-being’

Every person regardless of colour is affected by a system that debases blackness and elevates whiteness

Thandiswa references Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko, who was murdered by apartheid police in 1977, on her latest album.

The sonic soul of Steve Biko

Musicians have carried his ideology forward – but what would he make of today’s politics?

Steve Biko’s political thought was rooted in the climate of racism, and at the height of brutal subjugation.

Rethinking Steve Biko’s black consciousness political philosophy post-liberation

Leveraging colour as a means of progress can have a paradoxical effect of self-incarceration

Cover of It’s a continent book. Photo: Joseph Osayande

One Book, Two Takes: It’s a Continent

Astrid Madimba and Chinny Ukata’s impressive African history book by non-historians

Prizewinning architecture: This primary school in a village in Burkina Faso was designed by Diébédo Francis Kéré and built with locally sourced materials and the assistance of the villagers.

Positive spaces can help Africans realise their own agency

We must leverage local knowledge and materials to develop an architecture uniquely suited to our needs and conditions

(John McCann/M&G)

Farewell to Azania’s everyman literary icon Don Mattera

The poet, writer, artist and activist, who made rubbish of race, left his mark on all aspects of our lives