Interview Segment

Stanley John Abrahams interviewed by Joshua Ogada
May 26, 2005 Cape Town, South Africa.
"We waited for hours and hours and hours on the Grand Parade, and it was boiling hot, but it didn't matter..." [3:07]

Stan Abrahams describes the euphoria of the people of Cape Town waiting for Nelson Mandela to speak after his release from prison in February 1990.

Stanley Abrahams was born in 1928 in the District Six community of Cape Town. He was very active in the church where the District Six Museum is now housed, and he became a lay pastor there. He was active in protest actions against apartheid, such as participating in a two-day strike following the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 and responding to forced removals during the 1960s. Abrahams became a facilitator for the Institute for Healing of Memories, which conducts workshops for healing the wounds of apartheid, which an approach of "remember and change" rather than "forgive and forget."

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