Written in 1997, following what sounds to be an extensive oral history data collection effort, Charles van Onselen wrote "The Seed is Mine". The book brings to life the experiences of one, and one who might otherwise not have any other record in the written historical documents (exception on legal note). This book is an exemplary of oral history. It is heavy and presents immense detail, which at times can be slightly overwhelming as a reader, but nonetheless an important contribution and a product of exceptional work and detail. What I enjoyed about the book was the detail, where the dominant narratives are made complex, complicated or turned around with the lived experiences of Kas. In so doing, the book provides many new windows into seeing, and vicariously experiencing, South Africa of another time. Some examples from the book:

"The foreman lured Kas within his reach, caught hold of him by the arm and then-while he and the stable hand danced his disciplinary jig-called for his wife to remove the leather strap that he had hidden in his back pocket. Before the lady could oblige Kas, inspired by the need for improvisation in a novel such setting, sank his teeth into a conveniently situated white finger, which promptly spurted enough blood to elect a chorus of shouting and swearing from a clearly impressed Mrs. van der Walt. A half-dozen blacks, suspecting that oaths and cries on such a scale could only be summons for their services, suddenly appeared from nowhere to witness some deeply concerned Maine kinsmen persuading Kas to release the hapless foremans finger." (p. 42)

"Kas had reason to feel proud. At a time when most white farmers-who had enjoyed privileged access to commercial banks and the state's services to organised agriculture-where producing maize harvests of around three hundred bags, his family, with far more limited financial resources at their disposal, has matched their efforts. Nevertheless. The price of maize was disappointing-something that the Triangle's deeply suspicious populists ascribed to the functioning of the state's newly introduced Maize Control Board. At eight shillings and sixpence per bag, nobody was going to get rich, but Kas was grateful to have exceeded his target." (p. 194)

"After a careful inspection and much discussion, Kas agreed to purchase plots thirty-one and thirty-four for seven hundred pounds. he put down two hundred pounds as a deposit and agreed to pay the balance in smaller installments over an unspecified period. Phitise, equally impressed, bought himself a plot on basically the same terms. These two open-ended transactions conducted beneath the summer sun on a stretch of stone-strewn veld outside Ventersdrop were the outcome of thirty years labour on the land and a lifetime's ambition to own property." (p. 344)

"The odyssey which had begun in hope at Kommissierust in 1921 and ended in resignation at Varkenskraal in 1956. It took thirty-five years and fifteen farms for the likes of Hendrik Verwoerd and his supporters to get to the Maines where the Nationalists wanted them. The trekpas did not show how a man who but six years earlier had possessed 8 horses, 12 donkeys, 60 cattle, and 220 sheep had now been reduced to owning less than 40 animals. The Mains, who had entered the Mooi river valley on a ford truck with the chance of acquiring freehold property of their own, were leaving on an ox-wagon for a residential stand on a communal farm in a 'black spot.' Kas was on his knees." (p. 387) 

Ohio University Press has a series of "Short Histories of Africa". I recently decided to pick up most of the collection for potential use as reading materials for classes. This post covers "Chris Hani" (2014) by Hugh MacMillan. Like others in this series, this book helps provide accessible and concise materials on leading figures that otherwise are sometimes challenging to find appropriate student readings on. This one fills that gap. In addition to the biography, the book tells a lot of the history of the ANC and uMkhonto we Sizwe. A few notes:

"We must make apartheid expensive and costly in terms of financial resources and in terms of lives. It must be made painful. At the moment it is very sweet for them but it must be made painful and bitter, especially for the whites. It is bitter for the blacks. For the whites it must be made very painful and bitter… apartheid won't just be destroyed through talking, but, since it is a violent system, it will be destroyed by revolutionary violence." (p. 102)

"I am an implacable enemy of oppression. I am a soldier for democracy and justice. Negotiations are a product of all our sacrifices – those who went to jail, those into exile, those in camps in strange countries. What is happening is the fruit of this hard worthwhile labor … We need to build strong grass roots structures. We must build a popular democracy." (p. 126)

"… the ANC will have to fight a new enemy. That enemy would be another struggle to make freedom and democracy worthwhile to ordinary South Africans. Our biggest enemy would be what we do in the field of socio-economic restructuring. Creation of jobs; building houses, schools, medical facilities; overhauling our education; eliminating illiteracy; building a society which cares; and fighting corruption … " (p. 128) 

Ohio University Press has a series of "Short Histories of Africa". I had one book from this series previously, on Thomas Sankara, and recently decided to pick up most of the collection for potential use as reading materials for classes. This post covers "Steve Biko" by Lindy Wilson, published in 2011. I found this book useful as there are relatively fewer materials on Steven Biko, compared to others in the series (e.g., Fanon). The author also adds unique perspectives having done some interviews with people who knew Biko. A few notes:

"Biko was appalled at what he saw all around him in South Africa at the time: "the black man has become a shell, a shadow of man … bearing the yoke of oppression with sheepish timidity," he said. He challenged black people not to be a part of their own oppression, believing that "the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed'. He defined Black Consciousness as 'an inward-looking process' to 'infuse people with pride and dignity'. 'We have set out on a quest for a true humanity,' he said." (p. 14)

"No Saso president, for example, was in office for more than a year, a precedent set by Biko. This capacity to stand back, to put others forward, to initiate new ideas, get something going and make it practical, meant that although Biko was present, he managed not to be dominant." (p. 49)

"Biko's work was to awaken the people: first, from their own psychological oppression through reorganizing their inferiority complex and restoring their self-worth, dignity, pride and identity; secondly, from a mental and physical oppression of living in a white racist society." (p. 54)

"His message was simple and clear: Do not be a part of your oppression." (p. 148)

Winner of several awards, Harriet A. Washington's "Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present" (2006) documents a history we tend only to know bits and pieces of. Those familiar with ethics will be aware of the Tuskegee Study, but likely not the bigger story. This is a troubling read, but one that should be read. The book is not published by a university or academic press, and certain quotes and references are not cited, which leaves some potential interesting trails to follow as dead ends. Nonetheless, it is recommended. A few quotes of note:

• "Use of the term race to denote biologically different types of mankind evolved only in the eighteenth century, when the study of animal breeding gave rise to heightened awareness of animal subspecies and the possibility of breeding animals to encourage desired traits. Not coincidentally, this period coincided with the growth of the slave trade, when the biological distinctiveness of men became economically important. Those who studied the different groups of men were called ethnologists and were the forerunners of anthropologists. Ethnologists applied the classification and the categorization methods of the natural sciences, called taxonomy, to the study of man. Even after the meaning of race came to include subgroupings of man, it had several meanings. By races, some meant biological subspecies of man, analogous to the different breeds of dogs. For example, Swedish natural Carl von Linne - Carolus Linnaeus, the most famous of the taxonomists – categorized Africans (and, by extension, U.S. blacks) as Homo afer, theorizing that black men had different evolutionary forebears and had evolved along a separate evolutionary track from white men." (p. 33)

• "Sim's silver sutures did help to end a real medical tragedy for many women, and some excuse the abuse of enslaved women on this basis. This essentially utilitarian argument presents an ethical balance sheet, with the savage medical abuse of captive women on one hand and countless women saved from painful invalidism on the other. However, such an argument ignores the ethical concept of social justice, and these experiments violated this essential value because the suffering and the benefits have been distributed in an unfair way, leading to distributive injustice. In this case, the most powerless group, which is also a racially distinct group and a captive group, is the group upon which doctors inflicted harm "for the greater good." Another, privileged group enjoys the benefits but shares neither the pain nor the risks. Thus the more unexpected acceptability is clear." (p. 69)

• "the decision not to treat these sick men of the Tuskegee Study is a different crime, a crime of omission, and it illustrates several of the important patterns explored in this book. These include the selection of blacks for the riskiest studies; their disproportionate selection for nontherapeutic experimentation; the myth of medical distinctiveness (which held that syphilis was manifested differently in blacks); and the myth of hypersexed blacks as "incorrigible" vectors of sexual disease and dysfunction. The use of men as reservoirs of syphilis reinforce the familiar use of black bodies to generate the profitable wonders of new disease approaches (to which the subjects are rare the privy), and the clinical display of disease in the clinic and in medical journals." (p. 182)

• "The United States also chose to seek Nazi expertise. In 1945, the U.S. State Department, army intelligence, and the OSS, the immediate forerunner of the CIA, recruited former Third Reich scientist, granting them immunity, jobs, and new identities in a resettlement program for Nazi scientists. It was named Operation Paperclip, for the mode of identifying potential recruits - a simple paper clip placed on each of their dossiers. In exchange, the State Department asked that the scientist resume their old habits - working on secret nonconsensual research projects, many of which exploded patients - but this time throughout the United States." (p. 229)

• "research into sickle cell disorder, the first identified molecular disease, remains underfunded and the disease still awaits an effective treatment, but effective genetic therapies were mounted within just a few years after the gene for cystic fibrosis was discovered in 1989. Whites are at much higher risk than blacks for cystic fibrosis." (p. 315-316)

• "This book uses the term race because it is accepted argot, it can be a convenient, commonly used way of designating ethnic groups that are perceived as distinct. We all know what we mean (or think we do) when we denote someone's race as "black" or "white." In our nation, race is inarguably important in discussions of health and disease. However, the Human Genome Project has erased any lingering doubts: Biological race does not exist, because all humans share the same genes. Although the proportions of genes differ, meaning that genetic differences exist, these variations map very poorly on to what we think of as races. This seems to introduce a logical contradiction: If race is not real, how can we speak of race-based therapeutics? The answer is that race is real, but it is not biological: It is social. What correlates very closely to most "racial" differences ns life expectancy, mortality, disease susceptibility, and survival is the race to which one is perceived as belonging." (p. 317)