Men wait for at a railway station for transport to a mine.
Ernest Cole/© Ernest Cole Family Trust/Courtesy Wits Historical Papers/Photography Legacy Project
Cole was a master of portraying the violence of apartheid through scenes of everyday life.
Regina Twala in a rare photograph with her first husband Percy Kumalo, 1936.
Courtesy Ohio University Press
A powerful new book restores the writer and feminist politician to her rightful place in history.
Randi Linford/EyeEm/Getty Images
Challenging myths about heterosexual white South African men, Prinsloo published four books of short stories in 12 years.
Simon Nkoli (left) with activist and physician Ivan Toms in 1989.
Courtesy Julia Nicol Collection/GALA Queer Archive
The activist is today the subject of songs, sculptures, an annual lecture and even a new musical.
Small-scale fishers in Durban are drawn to southern Africa’s sardine run.
Rajesh Jantilal/AFP via Getty Images
South Africa’s policies need to do more to protect vulnerable and marginalised small-scale fishers and fishing communities.
Image courtesy Ilze Kitshoff/Sony Pictures Entertainment
Hollywood undermines Africa’s struggles, creating a false impression of the continent to please western viewers.
A young Juby Mayet in Vrededorp, Johannesburg.
© Baileys African History Archives/Drum photographer/Courtesy Jacana Media
The Drum journalist was a rare woman in a male-dominated world. Her autobiography has now been published after her death.
South Africans celebrate the anniversary of the Soweto Uprising of 1976, planned in Orlando East.
Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Soon after it was established in 1932 Orlando became a mecca of black urban culture and liberation politics.
Political activities on the University of the Witwatersrand campus in 1959.
Wits University
The 1986 research revealed that a large proportion of the community members surveyed thought that Wits served mainly white, corporate interests.
Members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions sing political songs in 1987 in Johannesburg.
Walter Dhladhla/AFP via Getty Images
Struggle songs are relevant even in the post apartheid context because they continue to be an important way in which people deliberate on issues.
The U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol resumes on Sept. 28, 2022.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
While the Jan. 6 committee investigating the US Capitol attacks has limited legal powers, it can help craft an accurate narrative of American democracy and history.
South African comedian Trevor Noah at the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles on September 12, 2022.
Photo by Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images
The comic offers important ways of criticising those in power. Trevor Noah is superb at it.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
JOSEPH EID/AFP via Getty Images
The global realignment triggered by the end of the Cold War and Gorbachev’s reforms ushered in a period of transition on the African continent.
Image by Liz Whitter courtesy of Wits University Press
Wits University Press is one of only 15 active university publishers in Africa – crucial for scholarship about the continent.
Detail of a photo of Lilian Ngoyi making a speech in 1960.
Azola Daniel/Wikimedia Commons
The pioneering role she played, and the sacrifices she made, extended well beyond the famous 1956 Women’s March.
The late former Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos.
Agência Brasil, used under Creative Commons Licence
The political skill to turn situations to his advantage, rather than any ability to mobilise people, made Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders.
Books are often targeted when they are sympathetic to the oppressed.
Eskay Lim / EyeEm via Getty Images
A scholar of literature sees striking parallels between contemporary book bans in the US and those that took place in South Africa during apartheid.
Family members wash away blood at the scene of a shooting in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, where seven people were shot dead in May.
Brenton Geach/Gallo Images
The study highlights the flimsy boundaries between different forms of violence: torture and extrajudicial punishment, lawful arrest, and an unlawful kidnapping.
Francis Wilson: an academic who never fitted easily into any school of thought or belonged in anyone’s camp.
Photo courtesy UCT News
He used his powerful research to promote social change for justice in South Africa.
Land ownership in South Africa remains skewed towards white farmers.
David Silverman/via Getty Images
Land reform had not been held back by the constitution but by capacity constraints and a lack of political will.