This educational website provides
primary source materials, newly-written narrative, and curriculum ideas
for teaching high school and undergraduate students about the many generations
who struggled to end apartheid and build democracy in South Africa.
Interviews with more than 60
people bring this history alive. Many important oral history projects
are being undertaken in South Africa, but few are online. This website’s
40 hours of interviews – and 120 segments created from them – are
a unique historical resource for anyone who cares about people determined
to become free from oppression. We are particularly grateful to the
people who agreed to be interviewed for telling their personal stories
about the struggle against apartheid.
Creating this online curricular
resource continues a long-standing interest in South Africa at Michigan
State University’s African Studies Center and MATRIX: The Center for
Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences Online.
Michigan State University was
pleased in 2005 to award an honorary degree to Ahmed Kathrada, a leader
of the struggle for freedom in South Africa. In 1999, MSU Press and
Mayibuye Books co-published Letters From Robben Island: A Selection
of Ahmed Kathrada's Prison Correspondence, edited by Robert Vassen,
the then-Associate Director of MSU’s English Language Center. Mr.
Kathrada agreed to be interviewed for Overcoming Apartheid, providing
a valuable window into the liberation struggle starting in the 1950s
and his 26 years on Robben Island. Kathrada also suggested other people
to interview.
Cooperating with South African
organizations and cultural heritage museums through the South African
Film and Video Project http://www.africanmedia.msu
One important outcome of this
preservation effort has been the digitizing and archiving of a unique
video collection from the 1980s and early 1990s created by videographers
with the Community Video Education Trust (CVET) {hyperlink to
www.cvet.org.za – this isn’t live yet, but it will be soon
in Cape Town. CVET has graciously permitted us to use selected video
segments in South Africa: Overcoming Apartheid, Building Democracy.
A number of other South African
organizations provided valuable assistance for this website and are
listed on the Acknowledgements {hyperlink page.
The Michigan State University
African Studies Center https://africa.isp.msu.edu/
one of ten Title VI National Resource Centers on Africa designated by
the U.S. Department of Education. Its strength is based on the more
than 160 faculty at MSU who are engaged in research, teaching, and service
about Africa. The Center also has an active outreach program to K-12
and post-secondary educators, and its African Media Program http://www.africanmedia.msu
The Center’s African Activist
Archive http://www.africanactivist.msu
MATRIX: The Center for Humane
Arts, Letters and Social Sciences Online http://matrix.msu.edu/
is one of the leading humanities technology centers in the country.
It has created the MediaMatrix and Project Builder applications that
were used to build this website and are available to others to use.
MATRIX has several projects in West Africa and South Africa.
The MSU Department of History http://www.history.msu.edu/ has one of the strongest African history programs in the country, with six faculty who teach about the continent. The department’s new Center for History Teaching and Learning is eager to work with pre-service and current educators who teach American and World History.