Multimedia Collection
South Africa: "Freedom in Our Lifetime"
(A Force More Powerful series)
VHS
34 minutes
HM278 .S61 2000
A black "uprising" against the injustice of apartheid - South Africa's system of racial discrimination - began in 1984. Many young blacks knew they could not win by violent force. Instead they organized at the grassroots - taking control of their own townships and making their grievances known to the white population. In the southern city of Port Elizabeth, 27-year-old Mkhuseli Jack led a boycott of white-owned businesses in June, 1985. By withholding their buying power, the black population drove a wedge between the white business community and the apartheid regime. A second boycott began in 1986, when the regime failed to act on boycotters' political demands. A nationwide state of emergency was imposed, and continued for three years: an admission that repression was the main business of the state - and that apartheid was dying. In 1989, a new president, F.W. DeKlerk, released Nelson Mandela and negotiated a new constitution, which guaranteed equal rights for all South Africans. In 1994, Mandela became president in South Africa's first democratic elections.
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