Interview Segment

Ben Magubane interviewed by Sean Fields
October 11, 2004 Durban, South Africa.
"It had to be a white person living in a shack, because it would not have had the same impact if it were me." [1:08]

Ben Magubane, a member of the ANC who lived in the United States for many years, describes a protest action against a bank on Wilshire Boulevard in Hollywood that was selling Krugerrands, a one-ounce gold coin sold by the South African government. ("Martin" whom he refers to living in the shack is the historian Martin Legassick.)

Although neither of Ben Magubane’s parents could read, he attended school and received a scholarship to attend the non-European section of University of Natal in 1954. He came to the United States and completed a Ph.D. in sociology. In 1967, Magubane went to teach at University of Zambia, where he became active with the African National Congress; Oliver Tambo (“OR”), President of the ANC, often worked at his house. Magubane returned to the United States to teach and was active with the ANC and in anti-apartheid organizing.

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