Jessie's Field Journal
Title
Jessie's Field Journal
Description
Collection Items
Jessie's Introduction
In both graduate school and her professional role, I live, reads, and writes for social change. I dig learning about social justice and social movement history and the many brave people that have stirred up change. While in South Africa I am most…
Fences
There are fences everywhere. High fences with large gates, on businesses, houses of all sizes, apartment communities, and hotels. Some appear innocent enough, made of decorative wood. Other fences are more obvious in communicating their message: …
Non-white, Non-human
While traveling through South Africa I have been trying to reposition myself in my mind: how would I feel as a Black or Coloured woman? How would my life have been different as a white person? It all feels foreign, emotions and realities that I…
Voyeur
I am writing this on the morning of our township tour. Townships, the settlements where Blacks and Coloureds were forced to move to as a result of Apartheid’s Group Areas Act, may be rows of inadequate government housing or a winding maze of tin…
Township Tourist
In my last post I wrote about my anxiety about that day’s “township tour,” particularly after our experience visiting Crossroads, a settlement just outside a township. Our township tour was not nearly as voyeuristic as I had feared, though it…
Blanche La Guma: Exile and Armed Struggle
Blanche La Guma—member of the African National Congress, the South African Communist Party, and the Federation of South African Women—served her community as a nurse and fought for freedom in the anti-apartheid struggle.
Along with her husband, Alex,…
Words from Cape Town
In which Cape Town speaks for itself.
“[Apartheid] was a society where we didn’t listen to one another. This stunts the growth of not only the oppressed but also the oppressor.”—Stan Henkeman, Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, on the…
“[Apartheid] was a society where we didn’t listen to one another. This stunts the growth of not only the oppressed but also the oppressor.”—Stan Henkeman, Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, on the…
Black Sash Advice Offices: Welfare Work as Political Work
Founded in 1955, the Black Sash was an organization of white, primarily upper-class women dedicated to ending the injustice of apartheid. They used their privilege to campaign against disenfranchisement and pass laws.
In the late 1950s the Black…
In the late 1950s the Black…
South Africa's First Democratic Ballot
While Dr. Fosl and I were reviewing papers at Amy Thornton's home, she showed us a copy of the ballot used in South Africa's first post-apartheid democratic National Assembly election on April 27, 1994.
Boasting 19 parties, the ballot illustrates…
Boasting 19 parties, the ballot illustrates…
Amy Thornton: White Ally, Communist, ANC Member, Freedom Fighter
While in Cape Town I assisted Dr. Fosl with her research on Amy Thornton, a member of the South African Communist Party and ANC anti-apartheid freedom fighter. Amy became involved with the Communist Party and the anti-apartheid movement when she was…