New perspectives on the history of Black consciousness in South Africa

Abstract

Since the emergence of Black Consciousness (BC) in South Africa in the late 1960s, the movement, its ideas and its leaders have all been the source of a great amount of scholarly interest, with justification.1 A movement of black tertiary education students, in the space of less than ten years, was able successfully to challenge the might of the apartheid regime, through its ideas as much as its actions, as the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) Nine trial of 1975–76 would so clearly show. The movement, its iconic leaders, its contribution to the Soweto uprising, its political philosophy and links to theology, its continuities with older forms of political thinking have all been aspects of study of the movement. It is an indication of the richness of BC that it still garners scholarly attention, especially as scholars have now pointed to at least two key areas that histories of Black Consciousness have neglected: its practical and theoretical contribution to community development and the impact of BC on the arts in South Africa. In addition, a story that continues to unfold is the sustained civic involvement of BC adherents, who were among the first crop of black vice chancellors to serve at South African institutions of higher education, such as Barney Pityana (University of South Africa), Mamphela Ramphele (University of Cape Town) and Mbulelo Mzamane (University of Fort Hare). It is a coincidence that all three of the scholars looked at in this review hail from the USA, but they fit none the less into a continuum of American writing of the history of BC in South Africa that is rivalled only by black South African scholars themselves.