Albie Sachs E-Mail Exchange: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

Albie Sachs's E-Mail Chat with High School Students

E-mail exchange with Doug Woodbrowns's world history course at Marin Academy in San Rafael, California

April, 2000

CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

"We read the news eagerly and identified unconditionally with those who were demanding their basic rights."

How much do you think the United States Civil Rights movement was influenced by the South African movement, seeing as the South African movement began first?

Matt

Did the civil rights movement in America give you hope for a freer South Africa in the future?

Andrew

During your years involved in politics, what degree of awareness did you have about the occurrences in the U.S. and the American civil rights movement?

Jenna and Erin

I came into politics in my late teens during the 1950s. This was a time when the Cold War was at its most vicious. We followed events in the USA very closely. Paul Robeson, the singer, was a great hero to many of us. We had pictures of him on our walls, and I used the fact that I could sing with a bass voice, "I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night" to join in our sing songs. We also use to play Pete Seeger and a friend of mine could even recite all the words of "Talking Union."

Come to think of it, Robeson's song, "I am an American," turned out to be prophetic for South Africa. It helped establish the vision that whoever we were, and without assimilating ourselves into a standardized, mixture-controlled melting pot, we could all be South Africans, that we came into the nation as we were proud of our culture, language, appearance, and beliefs, bringing them all in with us.

At a later stage the civil rights movement made a major impact on us. I had actually gone to jail in the early 1950s as part of a civil rights campaign against segregation in South Africa -- I sat on a seat marked "non-whites only"! So when the sit-ins started in the USA, I felt I was there. We read the news eagerly and identified unconditionally with those who were demanding their basic rights. It seems to me that great gains have been made in the USA since then but that, unfortunately, huge difficulties still remain. In a way, I feel more optimism about overcoming racism in South Africa than I do about the USA. Maybe an African majority, with wise leadership and drawing on its cultural strength and experience of struggle, will turn out to be more generous and accepting of a white minority than the white majority in this country. What gives me great pleasure is to welcome people from the USA to South Africa, to what we are doing, and to share experiences with us. In particular, I enjoy the opportunity to thank Americans for the very strong support they gave us in overcoming apartheid, especially in the late 1980s. I think it was threat of intensified sanctions from the USA that finally persuaded the then South African government that apartheid was doomed. So, thank you.