Research Catalog

Title

Strike a woman, strike a rock : fighting for freedom in South Africa / Barbara Hutmacher MacLean.

Author

MacLean, Barbara Hutmacher, 1926-2019

Publication

Trenton, N.J. : Africa World Press, c2004.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

viii, 339 p.; 22 cm.

Summary

• In this trenchant and compelling book, Barbara Hutmacher MacLean reveals the lives of a cross section of South African women who courageously opposed apartheid in ways the world never knew: blacks who risked death and torture by opposing the government's racial laws and whites who openly protested the same policies which gave them privilege. In the early 1970s MacLean, a journalist from California, arrived in East London, South Africa, to write for The Daily Dispatch. The editor, Donald.
• Woods, was a friend of Steve Biko, a black leader under house arrest in a town nearby. The author spoke with Biko and her husband photographed him, just weeks before his death in prison in 1977. That same year, the author and her husband were ordered to leave the country.
• MacLean returned to a new South Africa in early 1998. Building upon contacts, she found women in various parts of the country who had been part of the struggle against apartheid. The women she met told her of the past, the violent years leading to change, their roles in the new government, and their hopes for the future. They spoke from Parliament, from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, from provincial government, at the site of a women's self-help housing project, in a township.
• School, and from the offices of President Nelson Mandela. As these women speak to MacLean about their fight for freedom and the struggle against apartheid, it is apparent that South Africa would not have evolved as it has without the firm foundation laid by them. Book jacket.

Subject

• Anti-apartheid activists > South Africa > Biography
• Women anti-apartheid activists > South Africa > Biography

Genre/Form

• Biographies
• Aufsatzsammlung.
• Biographie.

Note

• Includes index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

• Arrival: Pretoria's traffic-choked center looked like Any City U.S.A. -- Sue van der Merwe: I've always thought of myself as working to change the country -- Trudy Thomas: You've got to stand there, let the storms come and know who you are -- Val Viljoen: You didn't think the situation would change. You were so used to it. You just battled on -- Ivy Gcina: No, I was not afraid. I was prepared to die actually.
• Judy Chalmers: We both felt a part of the struggle in a way we never stepped away from -- Noel Robb: We decided to carry on fighting for human rights under the name of the Black Sash -- Sheena Duncan: I saw a need for women to work for justice in this country -- Jean Pease: If you teach literacy about people's real interests, they learn far quicker -- Maureen Jacobs: I began teaching in 1984 in the squatter camps -- Susan Conjwa: Being in prison made me more strong, more determined.
• Mary Burton (1): Every Saturday and Sunday, we were marching or at public meetings -- Mary Burton (2): For two years, I've listened to terrible, terrible stories -- Virginia Engel: Secretly I became the link between the ANC and the unions -- Elsa Joubert: Everyone said, 'you've torn the veils from our eyes' -- Janice Honeyman: Theater so often reflects what's going on in the society -- Trudy de Ridder: I did intensive research on children in prison.
• EKM Dido: Some in my family are fair, some like me, in between, some are dark -- Karen Katts: What I never did expect, was to be able to vote -- Sue Power: It's complicated, working out who should be beneficiaries of land being returned -- Linda Fortune: District Six meant everything to me. It was my home -- Melanie Verwoerd: If there is ever a time to be in Parliament, it is now -- Ela Gandhi: My children grew up with us being banned.
• Lizzie Abrahams: I've got knowledge to share with other people -- Annette Cockburn: The Homestead helps street children reconstruct their shattered lives -- Patricia de Lille: We've achieved political freedom. There's still a long way to go -- Patricia Matolengwe: Construction is hard work which we, as women, don't know.

ISBN

• 1592210759 (cloth)
• 1592210767 (pbk.)

LCCN

^^2003022917

OCLC

• 53307673
• SCSB-11851517

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library