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Apartheid

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Woman power: Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s movements were limited 
. . . she was prohibited from attending gatherings, which prevented her from being quoted in the press

More than Mandela’s wife: Nomzamo’s own fight

An exploration of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s life and resistance against apartheid, highlighting how black women's domestic, social, and political labour shaped South African…

Exhibition: Sixty years after District Six was declared a white area, its former residents and their descendants still carry its street names, stories and relationships with them. Jimi Matthews’s photographs caught the landscape while that destruction was taking place.

The photographs that connect two histories of displacement

Veteran photographer Jimi Matthews pairs his archive of apartheid-era forced removals in District Six with intimate portraits of daily life and resilience in Palestine in a…

Black Consciousness: Bantu Stephen Biko understood that oppression was maintained through political force, economic domination and the destruction of the confidence of the oppressed.

Biko and the undone liberation of Blacks

Decades after Steve Biko was killed in apartheid police custody, the reopened inquest highlights not only the state-sanctioned violence of Room 619, but also democratic South…

A whodunit: We still do not know who was responsible for the earlier thwarted attempt to poison Siphiwo Mtimkulu with thallium. Does Dr Wouter Basson know? Poster by Janet Cherry

Dr Wouter Basson, please tell us who poisoned Siphiwo Mtimkulu

As apartheid chemical warfare head Wouter Basson fills theatre seats, an unresolved question lingers about the 1981 thallium poisoning of activist Siphiwo Mtimkulu and its…

Resistance: The leaders of the Women's March of 1956 clutch bundles of petitions which they are about to hand over to government officials at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. Photo by Alf Kumalo courtesy of MBR Projects, Olamuk & the Alf Kumalo Estate

The women history forgot are still here

Marking 70 years since the 1956 Women's March, an exhibition of Alf Kumalo's photography explores the depth, joy, and defiance of the women who fought against apartheid pass laws.

Author: South African-Canadian novelist and playwright, Kagiso Lesego Molope. Photos: Supplied

Kagiso Lesego Molope wants us to remember what we inherit

South African-Canadian novelist Kagiso Lesego Molope's latest work, 'We Inherit the Fire', delves into the devastating impact of apartheid on families and black women, exploring…

Uneasy reading: Eugene de Kock, the man named “Prime Evil”,
enjoys a huge following on Facebook where he continues to make
revelations and brag about his past. He says its purpose is to archive
history to preserve and present material concerning his life.

De Kock’s posts reopen old wounds

Notorious apartheid assassin Eugene de Kock is forcing his victims and their families to relive the torture and extrajudicial killings of anti-apartheid activists as he recounts,…

Compromised: Nelson Mandela did his time on the streets, in armed struggle and in prison... he did the best he could. He did not sell out. Photo: NMF

Nelson Mandela did not sell out

It was about two years ago that I discovered the name of one Gibson Makanda, apparently a historical figure of profound consequence the majority of South Africans do not know…

The red S-Class: How Madiba’s hand-built Mercedes proves that love is still our finest engineering

Step into the Apartheid Museum and discover the powerful story of Nelson Mandela's Signal Red Mercedes-Benz 500SE, a car hand-built by workers as a monument to gratitude and a…

Let Mandela speak for himself

More than a decade after his passing, a new documentary, 'Troublemaker: The Story Behind the Mandela Tapes', offers a fresh perspective on Nelson Mandela. Built around over 70…

Ousted national police commissioner Bheki Cele.

State should not have paid legal costs for apartheid security branch officers, says Cele

Former police minister Bheki Cele told the Khampempe Commission that the state should not have paid the legal fees of former apartheid-era Security Branch officers facing…

Mandela’s legacy deserves neither blind veneration nor reckless denigration

Every July, millions honour Nelson Mandela. This article defends his legacy against misrepresentation, arguing that criticisms from 'pseudo-revolutionaries' are historically…

Piece of cutting-edge journalism resonates, 50 years later

A powerful 1976 article by veteran journalist Dr. Mothobi Mutloatse, titled ‘Leaders Lash "Stupid" Education System’ and published in the Weekend World, is being included in a…

Profoundly unsettling: One of the most striking works, titled Entrance, depicts a doorway marked “Staff Only”, guarded by Blackjack officers saluting white officials entering the building.

Augmenting apartheid memory through art and exhibition

Elias Ditaba Sewape, at nearly 80, presents his first museum solo exhibition, "Ditaba – 80 Albert Street," at the William Humphreys Art Gallery in Kimberley. Through painting and…

Musical genius: Abdullah Ibrahim at CTIJF 2026. Photo: Laura McCullagh
Video

Abdullah Ibrahim didn't want you to request ‘Mannenberg’

A poignant reflection on the life and legacy of jazz maestro Abdullah Ibrahim, delving into his complex personality, his resistance to being defined by 'Mannenberg', and his…