Senator Robert F. Kennedy in South Africa

 4 - 9 June 1966 

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Overview

In June 1966 Senator Robert Kennedy made an historic visit to South Africa. It remains the most important visit an American made to South Africa because it took place during the darkest years of Apartheid. The architect of Apartheid, Dr. Verwoerd, was Prime Minister, while Nelson Mandela, Chief Albert Luthuli and other opposition leaders were in prison on Robben Island or in exile. With rare exception, all opposition across the spectrum of black and white South Africa- political parties, the universities, the churches, the arts and the media- were living under the tight control of the National Party and its military, bureaucratic and ideological machinery.       Surprisingly, very few Americans know of this dramatic and important visit by Robert Kennedy, then the Junior Senator from New York, to South Africa from June 4th to the 9th, 1966. He was invited by NUSAS, the anti-Apartheid National Union of South African Students, to deliver its Annual Day of Affirmation Speech to be held that year at the University of Cape Town. He was accompanied by his wife, Ethel Kennedy, and a small number of close aides.       The value of the visit needs to be understood within the context of America's special relationship with South Africa. For many Americans the pictures and news reports coming out of South Africa in the 1960's seemed hauntingly similar to the pictures emanating from the American South during the Civil Rights Movement. The visit emphasized the connections between the fight against racism in the United States and South Africa.      In the late fifties and early sixties, South Africa did not register on the agenda of American foreign policy. In an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times in 1994, at the time of South Africa's historic first democratic election, Anthony Lewis wrote of Senator Kennedy's visit: "In a trip to South Africa in 1966 he challenged the tyranny and fear that then had the country in its grip. At a time when few diplomats visited black townships or entertained black leaders, Senator Kennedy identified with the black majority and with all the victims of repression... he gave many South Africans, black and white, courage to fight injustice- and reason to believe that some in the outside world would care." 1       The first American political leader who showed real interest in South Africa was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. By the time of Senator Kennedy's visit in 1966, Dr. King had publicly linked the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and the battle against Apartheid in South Africa. (See 1965 speech.) By the early 1960's Dr. King and Chief Albert Luthuli, the banned president of the ANC, had long established contacts and in 1962 they issued a Joint Statement on Apartheid. (Senator Kennedy made an important special trip to meet with Chief Luthuli which is discussed later.) Dr. King had been invited by NUSAS in 1965, but had been denied a visa by the South African Government.       Senator Kennedy and his party had a very busy schedule while in South Africa. They arrived just before midnight (film clip) on Saturday night, June 4th at Jan Smuts airport, outside Johannesburg, to an enthusiastic welcome by a crowd of predominantly white English speaking students.      Readers should consult the detailed itinerary of the visit. There were, however, some notable events that were organized at the last moment and are not reflected in the official itinerary. Two of the most important of these were the visit with the banned President of the ANC, Chief Albert Luthuli (discussed later), and the visit with NUSAS president, Ian Robertson in Cape Town.       Robertson, with the strong support of the NUSAS leadership, was instrumental in inviting Senator Kennedy. A month before the visit, he was banned under the Suppression of Communism Act, which, among other things, meant that he could not attend Senator Kennedy's speech at the University of Cape Town. However, en route to his hotel from the airport, Senator Kennedy stopped to visit Robertson at his student apartment. Legend has it, that on entering the apartment, Senator Kennedy asked if the apartment was bugged. When told that it probably was, he began to stomp his foot on the floorboards. Asked to explain, Kennedy answered that the vibrations would disrupt the bugging mechanisms. How do you know that ?" he was asked. "I used to be Attorney General" he replied.      (This story was retold 24 years later by Nelson Mandela  (film clip) at a luncheon in his honor at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, during his first visit to the United States in 1990 following his release after 27 years of imprisonment.)      One of the legacies of Senator Kennedy's South African visit are the five memorable speeches he delivered.       The speech he gave at the University of Cape Town on June 6th, 1966, is by far the best known of Senator Kennedy's South African speeches. This speech is generally considered by most historians and biographers of Robert Kennedy to be the greatest speech of his life. One paragraph in particular- the "Ripple of Hope" paragraph - remains one of the most quoted paragraphs in American politics.  "It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." 2 audio (Click here for text and audio of the full speech.)       The speech he gave at the University of the Witwatersrand on the last night of the visit, however, although it is almost unknown- except to those in attendance that night - is perhaps the most political speech Senator Kennedy made in South Africa. By the end of his trip he and his party had learnt a lot more about South Africa and they had had an opportunity to interact with an enormous range of South Africans. He was free to speak- and to speak for others who could not - in a way that he could not in the earlier part of the visit.       The Wits speech was delivered in the evening after a dramatic visit to Soweto and meetings and appearances in various locations in downtown Johannesburg. By this time, the visit had begun to have a political impact in South Africa beyond just the white liberal universities, and Senator and Ethel Kennedy's appearances were drawing a more diverse audience of South Africans than just a few days earlier.       He gave three other important speeches in addition to a number of short impromptu speeches that went unrecorded. These other recorded speeches occurred at the Afrikaans University of Stellenbosch, at the University of Natal in Durban, and to the Johannesburg Bar Council. (These speeches can be read the Speeches section.)      The visit had an enormous impact on black South Africans at a very bleak time in the struggle for human rights in South Africa. It gave them a feeling of hope that they were not alone, and that someone important in the outside world knew and cared about what was going on in South Africa. As a black journalist wrote in the Sowetan newspaper, the Golden City Post, under a headline THE DAY WE WILL NEVER EVER FORGET: "He made us feel, more than ever, that it was still worthwhile, despite our great difficulties, for us to fight for the things that we believed in; that justice, freedom and equality for all men are things we should strive for so that our children should have a better life." 3       No white people had ever received the kind of exuberant reception the Kennedys received in Soweto. Thousands of people cheered them as they traveled the unpaved roads - much of the time on the roof of their car- and visited schools, The Regina Mundi Church and a spontaneous visit to the modest Soweto home of Mrs. Zondi.       A particularly important moment in the trip- in terms of both black South Africa and anti-Apartheid circles in general- was the visit to Chief Luthuli who was banned by the Government under the "Suppression of Communism Act" and forced to live in internal exile in Groutville. Chief Luthuli, Africa's first Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1960, and Senator Kennedy walked through the fields surrounding Chief Luthuli's house in order to talk freely beyond the ears of the South African police who were present. Chief Luthuli and Senator and Mrs. Kennedy also listened to a recording of President John F. Kennedy's June 1963 speech on Civil Rights on a record player that Senator Kennedy had carried with him on the helicopter. In subsequent statements, and in an article in Look Magazine published shortly after the visit, Senator Kennedy described Chief Luthuli as "one of the most impressive men I have ever met." 4      Senator Kennedy told Soweto residents of his talk with Chief Luthuli that same morning- the first news that most people had heard about their leader in over five years. Under his banning order Chief Luthuli could not be quoted or photographed. Senator Kennedy understood that he, as an American Senator, could talk about Chief Luthuli in a way that would be very dangerous for a South African. The very publication, in some English language newspapers, of a photograph of them together was a major challenge to the government’s restrictions. 5      In his interpersonal contacts with black South Africans, Senator Kennedy also conveyed an attitude that was in sharp contrast to the way they were treated by most white South Africans. At every opportunity- in airports, in downtown areas and in the white suburbs, and certainly during the visits to Groutville and Soweto- he sought out average black South Africans to shake their hands and talk to them. His actions and interest indicated that they were people worth knowing and befriending and not just faceless, replaceable natives or "kaffirs." 6      The visit was also very important and heartening to anti-apartheid whites. As an editorial in the liberal English newspaper, the Rand Daily Mail said "Senator Robert Kennedy's visit is the best thing that has happened to South Africa for years. It is as if a window has been flung open and a gust of fresh air has swept into a room in which the atmosphere had become stale and foetid. Suddenly it is possible to breath again without feeling choked." 7      The government and its supporters were always telling white liberals, such as lone Progressive Party M.P. Helen Suzman and Alan Paton, author of Cry the Beloved Country, (who both met with Senator Kennedy) , that they were a tiny minority that no one listened to. 8 The visit challenged the feelings of isolation and futility of anti-apartheid white South Africans and renewed their belief that they were in accord with the majority in the world, and it was, in fact, the government and its supporters that were an anachronistic minority. John Daniel, the NUSAS Vice President, in his vote of thanks to Senator Kennedy after his Cape Town speech, spoke for many white opponents of Apartheid when he said:  " …Your talk has served as a reminder to us that the free world associates with us and our stand for liberty and non-discrimination. Your message shows clearly that the world has forever turned its back on racial discrimination, and that the South African Government's blind worship of race theories is a pathetic and tragic defiance of the realities of the Twentieth Century. You sir, have given us a hope for the future, you have renewed our determination not to relax until liberty is restored not only to our universities, but to our land."      Or in the words of Alan Paton, "...The Kennedy visit can only be described as a phenomenon. It was exhilarating to hear again that totalitarianism cannot be fought by totalitarianism, that independence of thought is not a curse, that security and self preservation are not the supreme goals of life, that to work for change is not a species of treachery... It was to feel part of the world again." 9       What also made Robert Kennedy's visit to South Africa particularly significant was that although the South African Government refused to meet with him (and provided no security), he tried to not just berate Afrikaners as a bunch of incorrigible racists, but to engage them in a dialogue. While in the Cape he went to Stellenbosch, one of the premier Afrikaans universities, where he had an interesting interchange with students. He was invited to speak by the student's of the Simonsberg Men's Residence. This invitation was strongly criticized by the pro-government university administration but the meeting was allowed to proceed. 10       To engage Afrikaners, he spoke of his grandfather, Congressman Joseph Fitzgerald, who in 1901 submitted a Resolution to the US House of Representatives to allow refugees from the Boer War to be given asylum in the United States.       Indeed, his approach to talking to Afrikaners, and South Africans in general, was the discourse of America's own difficult history and struggle for racial justice. He spoke of discrimination in Boston against his Irish-American grandfather and father. Throughout the visit he spoke quite openly of America's racist past and ongoing racial problems, but in the spirit of the Civil Rights Movement - and the legislative victories in Congress it had helped bring about by 1966- he communicated the feeling that America in the 1960's was finally really doing something about its racial problems and that South Africa could, and should, do the same.       With hindsight, many of his comments about what could happen in a post-Apartheid South Africa, and the leadership role it could play in African political and economic development, are quite foretelling in terms of the negotiated revolution that occurred in South Africa between 1990 and 1994 and what has transpired during South Africa's first decade as a constitutional democracy.       What is evident in Senator Kennedy's speeches, the question and answer sessions he held at three of the universities, and accounts of his informal discussions, was the manner in which he subtly challenged and undermined some of the pillars of apartheid ideology and mythology.       First was the image of the 'primitive and violent African' which the South African Government used to try to reinforce the notion that blacks were not ready for freedom and democracy. He reminded his audience that the greatest savagery in the 20th century had been committed by whites like Hitler and Stalin. In response to some of his questioner's efforts to use biblical text to legitimize white supremacy- quite common in pro-Apartheid Dutch Reform churches in South Africa -he asked "Suppose God is Black ?" 11       He also challenged the government's ongoing efforts to wrap itself in the cloak of anti-Communism as an excuse to crush its opposition (no matter how liberal or anti-Communist), and to fend off Western criticism. "Reform is not Communism," he reminded them, and the means to fight Communism were not repression and blacklisting but the promotion of democracy and equal economic opportunity.       On a number of occasions Senator Kennedy spoke of the common histories that bind South Africa and the United States. These similar experiences were well captured in the opening paragraph of his Cape Town speech: "I came here because of my deep interest and affection for a land settled by the Dutch in the mid-seventeenth century, then taken over by the British, and at last independent; a land in which the native inhabitants were at first subdued, but relations with whom remain a problem to this day; a land which defined itself on a hostile frontier; a land which has tamed rich natural resources through the energetic application of modern technology; a land which once imported slaves, and now must struggle to wipe out the last traces of that former bondage. I refer, of course, to the United States of America." (film clip)       He also reminded his South African audiences that the United States and South Africa had been allies in World War I, World War II and the Korean War. He knew, of course, that the South African military that had fought in World War II against Fascism was quite different to the South African military now defending Apartheid, but by recalling these alliances, he underlined the point that American criticism of South Africa was not directed at the country and its people but at its policies. Senator Kennedy made clear his belief that as an "ally" with a special relationship to South Africa, the United States -one of the world's leading democracies- also had special responsibilities vis-à-vis South Africa.        On his return to the United States, Senator Kennedy tried to shine more of a spotlight on South Africa. He spoke about his visit in public forums and in the Congress. In August 1966, soon after the visit, he published an article on his visit in LOOK Magazine. In it he was able to say some of the things he might not have been able to say while in South Africa. It was also the first publication in the United States by a national politician- in a mainstream and widely distributed magazine- on the realities of Apartheid South Africa.       Soon after his return, Senator Kennedy wrote to the CEO's of 50 major American corporations with operations in South Africa, seeking their ideas on how they could use their influence to challenge Apartheid in the workplace. This initiative had many of the elements of what later became known as the "Sullivan Principles." 12       It is also worth noting, as a harbinger of contentious American policy debates in the 1980's about what to do about South Africa, that Senator Kennedy never called for economic sanctions against South Africa but in private conversations he hinted that later circumstances might require a different approach.       Senator Kennedy's visit to South Africa, together with Dr. King's activities on South Africa, were noted internationally and they had an influence on the growing United Nations commitment to confront Apartheid.       Like many other questions cut short by Senator Kennedy's assassination in California on June 5th, 1968, we can only speculate on what US policy towards South Africa might have been if he had been elected President in 1968. But it is most likely that South Africa would have moved higher up on the American agenda much sooner than it did.       The end of Apartheid and Nelson Mandela's historic 1994 election victory, and the first ten years of post-Apartheid South Africa, have made it possible to reflect on America's contribution to these changes, both positive and negative, in a way that was not possible before. Robert Kennedy's visit to South Africa is a useful doorway to these difficult but important times.       Within the context of the United States' activities in Africa in the 1960's, historians will probably judge Robert Kennedy's South African trip as one of America's better moments in Africa.       Together with the activities of various other American individuals and organizations working to mobilize American opinion about the situation in South Africa in the Sixties, Senator Kennedy's visit helped to plant seeds -for what was to take another two and a half long decades to bare fruit. This story is worth telling not just to record a small but significant piece of a larger history, but because the visit touches on important questions with which the United States still grapples- how to promote human rights and democratic change in the world while engaging in an honest discourse on America's own historical problems and successes.
	Footnotes
1.	Anthony Lewis, New York Times, May 6th, 1994.
2.	This paragraph is quoted at Senator Kennedy's grave site at Arlington National Cemetery.
3.	Juby Mayet, Golden City Post, Johannesburg, June 9th, 1966.
4.	Robert Kennedy, "Suppose God is Black?" LOOK Magazine, August 23rd, 1966.
5.	An interesting controversy connected to Chief Luthuli, which is illustrative of how threatened and repressive apartheid South Africa was in the 1960’s, was the painting “The Black Christ” by Ronald Harrison. It depicted Luthuli on the cross and Prime Minister, Dr. Verwoerd, and Minister of Justice, John Vorster- as Roman centurions. It was banned almost immediately after its exhibition and smuggled out of the country.
6.	Kaffir was a derogatory name that many white people used to refer to black South Africans.
7.	Rand Daily Mail. Johannesburg, June 9th, 1966.
8.	When Senator Kennedy was criticized in the government- controlled media for daring to comment on South Africa’s problems when he had only been in the country a short time, Paton responded with a parable where he compared South Africa to “a room full of people with all the doors and windows closed, and all the people smoking and drinking and talking. And a stranger from outside opens the door and exclaims- Phew What a fug in here ! And they shout at him: How do you know ? You only just came in.” (In: Peter Alexander. Alan Paton: A Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 343.)
9.	Alan Paton, Contact, quoted in William van den Heuvel & Milton Gwirtzman, On His Own: RFK 1964-68, New York: Doubleday & Co., 1970, p. 160.
10.	Some commentators have suggested that this visit helped plant some of the seeds for the later emergence of the Verligte ("Enlightened") Movement at Stellenbosch.
11.	"Suppose God is Black? " LOOK Magazine, August 23rd, 1966.
12.	The Sullivan Principles, named after Rev. Leon Sullivan, were investment policies supported by most American companies who remained in South Africa in the 1980's.
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Suppose God Is Black

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8-23-66 Suppose God is Black BY SEN. ROBERT F. KENNEDY South Africa's dilemma: a bright future weighed down by dark cruelty. Here is a personal report on the land of apartheid, where even the churches are segregated. AT THE SOUTHERN TIP OF AFRICA, the mountains rise up and then fall sharply to the sea. The beaches are washed in turn by the harsh Atlantic and the warm, slow waters of the Indian Ocean. There, perched on the rocky slopes of the Cape of Good Hope, stands the proud city of Cape Town, a monument to the remarkable fortitude and vigor of the Dutch, British, French, Africans and others who have built one of the richest and most energetic societies in the world.       As our airplane banked over the city, strikingly beautiful in the bright sunlight, all of us smiled and talked, warmed by the shared pleasure of beauty and of pride in human accomplishment.       Then a voice said, "There is Robben Island," and the plane went silent and cold. For Robben Island is home to more than 2,000 political prisoners in South Africa-black and white, college professors and simple farmers, advocates of nonviolence and organizers of revolution, all now bound in the same bleak brotherhood because of one thing: Because they believe in freedom, they dared to lead the struggle against the government's official policy of apartheid.       Apartheid, the Afrikaans word for "apartness," rigidly separates the races of South Africa-three million whites, twelve million blacks, and two million  Indian and "colored" (mixed-blood) people. It permits the white minority to dominate and exploit the nonwhite majority completely. If your skin is black in South Africa:       You cannot participate in the political process, and you cannot vote.       You are restricted to jobs for which no whites are available.       Your wages are from 10 to 40 percent of those paid a white man for equivalent work.       You are forbidden to own land except in one small area.       You live with your family only if the government approves.       The government will spend one-tenth as much to educate your child as it spends to educate a white child.       You are, by law, an inferior from birth to death.       You are totally segregated, even at most church services.       During five days this summer, my wife Ethel and I visited South Africa, talking to all kinds of people representing all viewpoints. Wherever we went-Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, Stellenbosch, Johannesburg-apartheid was at the heart of the discussion and debate.       Our aim was not simply to criticize but to engage in a dialogue to see if, together, we could elevate reason above prejudice and myth. At the University of Natal in Durban, I was told the church to which most of the white population belongs teaches apartheid as a moral necessity. A questioner declared that few churches allow black Africans to pray with the white because the Bible says that is the way it should be, because God created Negroes to serve.       "But suppose God is black," I replied. "What if we go to Heaven and we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, and God is there, and we look up and He is not white? What then is our response?"       There was no answer. Only silence.       In Rome a week later, when Ethel and I met with Pope Paul VI, we discussed South Africa-the loss of individual rights, the supremacy of the state, the growing rejection of Christianity by black Africans because, as one of them said, "The Christian God hates the Negroes." Distress and anguish showed in the Pope's face, the tone of his voice, the gestures of his hands.       I told the Pope about our visit to the Roman Catholic church he had dedicated a few years ago in Soweto, the section of Johannesburg set aside for black Africans. He remembered it well. The church is not permitted to own the property on which it is built, and the priests there are under constant government pressure.       As with all black Africans, the lives of the people of Soweto depend upon the symbols written in their individual passbooks. These must be carried at all times, like an automobile registration- but for human beings. To be caught without one, or with one lacking the proper endorsement by an employer, could mean six months in prison or exile to arid, forbidding places designated "native homelands."       Except in one small area, a black African's wife must have a special pass to live with him-unless both happen to find work in the same town. She can visit him for up to 72 hours, but for a stated written purpose, and then she must stand in line to request her pass.       Arrests abound under the passbook law-more than 1,000 every day. To date, there have been five million convictions among the nonwhite population of fourteen million.       Occasionally, the tortured cry out eloquently, as one did when convicted of inciting a strike (illegal for black Africans).       "Can it be any wonder to anybody that such conditions make a man an outlaw of society?" he asked. "Can it be wondered that such a man, having been outlawed by the government, should be prepared to lead the life of an outlaw?"       That man was now below, on Robben Island, sentenced to lifeimpriso-nment. And as we turned back to the bright bustle of Cape Town, I pondered the dilemma of South Africa: a land of enormous promise and potential, aspiration and achievement-yet a land also of repression and sadness, darkness and cruelty. It has produced great writers, but the greatest, Alan Paton, who wrote Too Late the Phalarope and Cry, the Beloved Country, can travel abroad only if he is prepared never to return. It has a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Chief Albert Luthuli of the Zulus, but he is restricted to a small, remote farm, his countrymen forbidden under pain of prison to quote his words. It has some of the finest students I have seen anywhere in the world-intelligent, aware, committed to democracy and human dignity-but many are constantly harassed and persecuted by the government.       Some of these young people, members of the 20,000-strong National Union of South African Students, crowded Cape Town's Malan Airport as we landed. The NUSAS - through its president, a courageous senior at the University of Cape Town named Ian Robertson-had invited me to make the 1966 Day of Affirmation address. The annual Day, June 6 this year, formally affirms the 42-year-old organization's commitment to democracy and freedom, regardless of language, race or religion. Robertson was not at the airport. Nor would he be at the university that night. At the moment of our arrival, he sat in his apartment in Cape Town, forbidden to be in a room with more than one person at a time, to be quoted in the press in any way, to take part in political or social life-prohibited, although he is studying to be a lawyer, to enter any court except as a witness under subpoena.       He was thus "banned" for five years by the minister of justice, who alleged that, in some unspecified way, he was furthering the aims of communism. But it was generally accepted that young Robertson's only offense was to invite me to speak.       That afternoon, I visited my host at his apartment. I presented him with a copy of President Kennedy's book, Profiles in Courage, inscribed to him "with admiration" by Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy.       I recalled my dinner, shortly after arrival the day before, in Pretoria with politicians, editors and businessmen, all genuinely puzzled that the Western world found fault with South Africa when South Africa was so staunchly anti-Communist.       "But what does it mean to be against communism," I asked, "if one's own system denies the value of the individual and gives all power to the government-just as the Communists do?" They said South Africa's "unique problems" were internal.       "Cruelty and hatred anywhere can affect men everywhere," I said. "And South Africa could too easily throw a continent, even the world, into turmoil.       "But you don't understand," they said. "We are beleaguered."       I could understand that feeling. The Afrikaners, people of Dutch stock who make up 60 percent of the white population, struggled against foreign rule from 1806 until 1961. The Voortrekkers (literally, fore-pullers) opened up vast new areas in ox-drawn caravans during the last century, and their descendants fought the Boer War.       Yet, who was actually beleaguered? My dinner companions, talking easily over cigars and brandy and baked Alaska? Or Robertson and Paton and Luthuli? And the Indian population being evicted from District 6, an area of Cape Town, after living there for decades -its leadership "banned" for five years for protesting?       For the minister of justice can deprive a person of his job, his income, his freedom and-if he is black-his family. The minister's word alone can jail any person for up to six months as a "material witness," unspecified as to what. The prisoner has no right to consult a lawyer or his family. Without government permission, it is a criminal offense even to tell anyone he is being detained. He simply disappears, and he may be in solitary confinement for the entire six months. No court can hear his case or order his release. And-a final touch-he may be taken into custody again immediately after release. Many people held under this law and its predecessor committed suicide.       The capstone to this structure of repressive power is the "ban." On his own authority, the minister of justice can ban people from public life, from leaving their villages or even their homes. His victims are prohibited from contesting the order in court. Once a person is banned, it is illegal to publish anything he says. A factory worker may be prohibited from entering any factory, or a union official from entering any building where there is a union office. A political party can be destroyed by banning its leaders-which is exactly what happened to Alan Paton's Liberal party. They cannot legally communicate with each other, and the police watch them constantly.       And all this power is in the hands of Balthazar J. Vorster, the minister of justice, who, incidentally,was interned in South Africa during World War II because of his activities in a Nazi-like terrorist force that harassed the British allies.       These things were on my mind as I walked through 18,000 students at the University of Cape Town that evening. In the speech, I acknowledged the United States, like other countries, still had far to go to keep the promises of our Constitution. What was important, I said, was that we were trying. And I asked if South Africa, especially its young people, would join in the struggle:       "There is discrimination in New York, the racial inequality of apartheid in South Africa and serfdom in the mountains of Peru. People starve in the streets of India, a former prime minister is summarily executed in the Congo, intellectuals go to jail in Russia, thousands are slaughtered in Indonesia, wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere. These are differing evils-but they are the common works of man. They reflect the imperfections of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, the defectiveness of our sensibility toward the sufferings of our fellows.... And therefore they call upon common qualities of conscience and of indignation, a shared determination to wipe away the unnecessary sufferings of our fellow human beings…."       In a response afterward, John Daniel, vice president of NUSAS, was eloquent and courageous: "You have given us a hope for the future. You have renewed our determination not to relax until liberty is restored, not only to our universities but to our land."       The next day, I spoke at the University of Stellenbosch, which has produced all but one of South Africa's prime ministers. Nestled in a green and pleasant valley, the first center of Afrikaner independence, it is the fountainhead of Afrikaner intellectual-ism today. Everyone expected a cool, if not hostile, reception. But we were greeted in the dining hall by the rolling sound of thunder-the pounding of soup spoons on tables, the students' customary applause. It was clear that, although many differed with me, they were ready to exchange views.       At the question session, they defended apartheid, saying it eventually would produce two nations, one black and one white. Had not India been divided into Hindus and Moslems?       But, I asked, did the black people have a choice? Why weren't they or the "colored" people consulted? The black Africans are 70 percent of the population, but they would receive only 12 percent of the land, with no seaport or major city. How would they live in areas whose soil was already exhausted and which had no industry ?       And they are not being prepared educationally. Black children are not taught in English or Afrikaans, but in tribal tongues, thus cutting them off from modern knowledge. Education is compulsory for whites but not for nonwhites; thus, one of every 14 white students reaches the university, while only one in every 762 blacks makes it. Indeed, one in three gets no schooling at all, and of those who do, only one in 26 enters secondary school. And what about the two million "colored" people, neither white nor black? They are in limbo, somewhat better off than the blacks, but far worse than the whites. There is no plan to give them land of their own-no future except more subjection and humiliation.       Earlier, I had asked a group of pro-government newspaper editors to define "colored." They considered and said, "a bastard." I asked if a child born out of wedlock to a white man and white woman would be colored. They said the whole area was difficult. Then one of them said it was simply a person who was neither white nor black. A South American, yes; an Indian, yes; a Chinese, yes-but a Japanese, no. Why not a Japanese? Because there are so few, was the answer. It developed, however, that South Africa trades heavily with the Japanese, and perhaps it was more profitable to call them white.       Afterward, at the University of Natal, the audience of 10,000 included, for the first time, a large number of adults. I talked about the importance of recognizing that a black person is as good, innately as a white person: "Maybe there is a black man outside this room who is brighter than anyone in this room-the chances are that there are many." Their applause signaled agreement.       A questioner raised a point made over and over: that black Africa is too primitive for self-government, that violence and chaos are the fabric of African character. I deplored such massacres as those that had taken place in the Congo. But I reminded them that no race or people are without fault or cruelty:       "Was Stalin black? Was Hitler black? Who killed 40 million people just 25 years ago? It wasn't black people, it was white."       The following day, we spent three hours in the black ghetto of Soweto. We walked through great masses of people, and I found myself making speeches from the steps of a church, from the roof of a car and standing on a chair in the middle of a school playground.       Many of the homes there are pleasant, far more attractive than those in Harlem or South Side Chicago. But Soweto is a dreary concentration camp, with a curfew, limited recreation, no home ownersllip and a long list of regulations whose violation could cause eviction.       For five years, until our visit, the half-million people of Soweto had no direct word from their leader, the banned Albert Luthuli. My wife and I had helicoptered down the Valley of a Thousand Hills at dawn to see him at Groutville, about 44 miles inland from Durban.       He is a most impressive man, with a marvelously lined face, strong yet kind. My eyes first went to the white goatee, so familiar in his pictures, but then, quickly, the smile took over, illuminating his whole presence, eyes dancing and sparkling. At mention of apartheid, however, his eyes went hurt and hard. To talk privately, we walked out under the trees and through the fields. "What are they doing to my country, to my countrymen," he sighed. "Can't they see that men of all races can work together-and that the alternative is a terrible disaster for us all?"       I gave him a portable record player and some records of excerpts of President Kennedy's speeches. He played President Kennedy's civil-rights speech of June 11, 1963, and we all listened in silence- Chief Luthuli, his daughter, two government agents accompanying us, my wife and I. At the end, Chief Luthuli, deeply moved, shook his head. The government men stared fixedly at the floor.       As I left the old chief, I thought of the lines from Shakespeare: "His life was gentle, and the elements/So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up/And say to all the world, 'This was a man!'"       That night, in the final address, I spoke to 7,000 at the University of Witwatersrand on the battle for justice. I was thinking of James Meredith, the courageous "freedom walker" who had just been shot on a Mississippi highway, when I said:       "Let no man think he fights this battle for others. He fights for himself, and so do we all. The golden rule is not sentimentality but the deepest practical wisdom. For the teaching of our time is that cruelty is contagious, and its disease knows no bounds of race or nation."       I stressed that it was up to South Africa to solve its racial problems, that all any outsider could do was to urge a common effort in our own countries and around the world and show that progress is possible.       "My own grandfather had a very difficult time," I said, "and my father finally left Boston, Massachusetts, because of the signs on the wall that said, 'No Irish Need Apply.'       "Everthing that is now said about the Negro was said about the Irish Catholics. They were useless, they were worthless, they couldn't learn anything. Why did they have to settle here ? Why don't we see if we can't get boats and send them back to Ireland? They obviously aren't equipped for education, and they certainly can never rule…."       They laughed, and I could not resist adding:       "I suppose there are still some who might agree with that."       But the final question was the most difficult: How can there be genuine dialogue, and therefore a hope of solution, when your adversary also makes the rules and acts as referee with the power to destroy you at will? I said I recognized the terrible problem they faced, but there were basically only two alternatives: to make an effort-or to yield, to admit defeat, to surrender.       In my judgment, the spirit of decency and courage in South Africa will not surrender. With all of the difficulties and the suffering I had seen, still I left tremendously moved by the intelligence, the determination, the cool courage of the young people and their allies scattered through the land. I think particularly of the gay and gallant student, about to speak at Durban, who said to the Special Police there: "Please don't listen to me too closely, but, if you do, you'll find this is a real swinger." And I think of Martin Shule*, another student, who spoke after me at Witwatersrand and said: "We must now cast off all self-protective timidity, and we must now willfully and deliberately descend into the arena of danger to preserve the independence of thought and conscience and action which is our civilized heritage. We must now set ourselves against an unjustifiable social order and strive energetically and selflessly for its reform."       They are not in power now, but they are the kind of people who make a nation, who may one day make South Africa a land of light and freedom and allow it to take its full place in the world. Theirs is the spirit of which Tennyson wrote in Ullysses: One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate,  but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.  * Correct name is Merton Shill

(Click here for text and audio of the full speech.)
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Do You Remember Something in Particular From Your Primary School Days?

Trinity College Dublin Librarian, Therese Mulpeter, does 

She wrote an article about one specific experience in 1969 from her primary school days to accompany documents she was donating to the Research Collections at Trinity which is connected with this experience.

The article recalled how the then six year-old[!] Therese was told to become a ‘god-parent’ to an African girl who was to be given the name Anne. 

Below, is an extract from the article as it appeared online: 

“We all recognise 1969 as the year that man first stepped on the moon but few would recall that it was also the year that Pope Paul VI became the first reigning pope to step onto the African continent in Uganda.

At that time there was a practice in Catholic schools for children preparing to make their First Holy Communion to make an offering to become ‘god-parents’ to children in Africa so that they could be baptised into the Catholic faith. 

At Belgrove National School in Clontarf, my teacher Miss Heid, told us to choose a name for our ‘baby’. I was only six years old and I came up with the name Anne. 

In my young mind I thought that all these babies would be brought to the school and I would get to bring mine home. 

I puzzled over where she would sleep. 

The penny [literally] dropped when I received my god-parent card with my name and Anne’s name handwritten on the back……we would never meet. 

It was simply a very successful fund raising effort to support mission work in Africa. 

Try explaining that to a six year old! 

The only tangible connection I had with Anne was the card. 

In 1969 the Catholic population of Uganda was approximately 3 million and no one batted an eye in Ireland at holding a collection for the ‘black babies’ or of referring to an unbaptised infant as a pagan. Today the catholic population of Uganda stands at around 13 million.”

The god-parent card issued to Therese and the other pupils bore the title: Crusade for Rescue, Baptism and Catholic Education of Pagan Children. 

Sammy the Plaster Figure Black Baby

In his contribution to the subject published in the Irish Independent in November 2006 and titled The Little Black Babies, Rory Egan wrote as follows: 

“In many schools around the country a mandatory collection of a shilling a week was made for the 'Little Black Babies' for which one was given a small card showing a crying child. It is incredible to think that many a young schoolchild thought that it was some sort of instalment scheme and that some day they would be the proud possessor of an African child. 

The ultimate lasting memory of poor taste and misguided marketing was something that could be found in many schools and convents and was called 'Sammy'. Sammy was a plaster figure of a black baby whose head nodded every time a penny was placed in the slot of the box upon which he knelt.”

Remote and Alien Pagan Babies  

In a blogpost dated 26 November 2018 and titled Remote and alien pagan babies, John Grenham posted a notice originally produced by the Pontifical Association of the Holy Childhood “On behalf of the Myriad OUTCAST PAGAN BABIES” and which had been published in the Irish Independent edition of April 1, 1939. 

This notice asked for “at least a little crumb from your LENTEN ALMS”. 

“For the modest donation of 2/6 (two shillings and six pence) you can help to save one of these hapless dying babies from the cruelest of fates.”

Other Countries 

More childhood schooldays recollections about ‘pagan baby’ programmes in the 1950s / early-1960s in other countries can be found online. 

There are testimonies from Scotland, while from the United States of America, stories from the Adopt A Pagan Baby drive have been recounted. 

The following is from ABCtales on the subject of Black baby

“The St Stephen’s Digestive biscuit test was much more exacting. At school break time in the morning we could buy a Digestive biscuit off Mrs Boyle for one old penny. Some, like myself, were often excluded from this experiment because they had lots of brother and sister and too few pennies. But unlike the Stanford experiment Mrs Boyle didn’t offer two -or more Digestives for delaying, or not eating a biscuit we couldn’t afford - she offered salvation, for an old penny. She gave us the option of eating a Digestive, or buying a black baby.

If we bought a black baby for a penny it was ticked down on a sheet and when you got to  a shilling eventually you got to own a black baby and you were given a picture of it. For giving up Digestive biscuits you were sent to heaven. Now that’s what I call delayed gratification.”

Pagan Baby Contests 

Here is another recollection on Pagan Babies, this time from Telling Secrets blogspot: 

I went to Roman Catholic School, so we also had Pagan Baby Contests.   

It went like this: You had to bring in a dime every week (some of the nuns allowed you to bring in pennies or nickels which you could save up and exchange for a dime) which would then fit into a slot on a poster which had your name on it. When you got to $1, you were allowed to 'name' your Pagan Baby and the money would be sent "to the missions" so "Father" could baptize one of the little Pagan Babies with your name. 

Sister told us that we were saving the "little savages" Africa or Laos or Cambodia or Viet Nam, baptizing them in the name of Jesus. I know. Hard to believe that we once talked that way - and, meant it.  

There were 30-40 kids in my class. We had Pagan Baby Contests every 10 weeks. Not a bad fundraising scheme, eh? I used to imagine that there was a village in Viet Nam or Africa somewhere with lots of girls named "Elizabeth".

Anyway, even the Pagan Baby Chart and the Pagan Baby Certificate you got were all written in Cursive

Does anyone remember giving your change for pagan babies?

This is the question posed on Facebook and which also received quite a number of responses; perhaps, an indication of how much this childhood memory persisted into adulthood?  

The Unanswered Questions 

So many questions arise from the childhood recollections of those who are now adults today; and who were told to be a ‘god-parent’ to a ‘pagan baby’ during their schooldays. 

“Try explaining that to a six year-old”, was how Therese Mulpeter summed up her own ‘god-parent’ experience in that October 2017 article. 

Therese Mulpeter’s question certainly throws a challenge to all of us to examine and reflect on something which has had quite a profound effect on children’s lives and how, perhaps, it might have shaped their attitudes towards other people; Africans, for example? 

These will be the focus of discussion in the next blogpost.