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Authors: Neville Frankel
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“Write about those people. Put their voices in your stories.”
“I’ll do better than that,” she said as she stood up and began to gather the papers on the table to take home with her. “This week we’re going to the Odin Theatre. I’m going to show you the face of this country—the face they intend to beat into submission.”
“Okay,” I said. “Where’s the Odin Theatre?”
“You really don’t know, do you?” she said with a grin. “It’s at the center of Sophiatown.”
That first visit to Sophiatown changed the course of my life—not only because I saw so many black faces and black lives, but because for the first time, I saw who your mother really was. Most of all, it was the moment in my life when I first understood what it meant to be South African; when I recognized the richness of the identity that was being denied all of us. There was no going back from that moment.
Blacks made up eighty percent of the population, but they were invisible to us. We might speak a few words in one of the Bantu languages—Xhosa or Zulu or Shangaan—but we knew nothing of their customs or their mythology; nothing of their families or where and how they lived. Sometimes we didn’t know their family names, or even the names of their children.
There were exceptions, of course—people who recognized the inhumanity of apartheid, and who did their bit to make a difference. But for the most part it was a sort of willed ignorance—because if you acknowledge how evil the system is but continue to live in it and benefit from it, then you have to live each day with your hypocrisy. Most people aren’t evil enough—or strong enough—to do that, and it was easier to simply ignore the problem. We all did.
Sophiatown, 1953
Sophiatown was a hodge-podge of people—black, colored, Indian, Asian, and they all lived in relative harmony. They belonged. It was one of the few places in the country where they could own their homes and the land they lived on. I didn’t understand quite what that meant until Michaela and I drove up to the center of Sophiatown that first time in her father’s Volvo.
It was the first time I saw Christ the King Church, where Father Trevor Huddleston preached, and where Michaela helped in the Mission school. Father Huddleston was an Anglican priest who had brought his ministry from England, and he was the first white religious leader to come out strongly against apartheid. He was way ahead of his time, and the first time I met and heard him speak was on that winter evening at the Odin Theatre.
When your mother and I arrived in Sophiatown we drove straight to the home of Dahlia and Charlie, a young couple who worked for Father Huddleston. Dahlia was short and energetic, with a sweet face and an easy smile; Charlie towered over her, a big, serious man who moved quietly as if he didn’t want to reveal his true size. I remember thinking at the time that being so tall must have been even harder for a black man; that it’s difficult to fade into the background when one stands out in a crowd.
We were the only two white guests in the house. Our hosts were gracious and pleasant, and I felt truly welcome. They greeted us warmly, looked into my eyes instead of down at my feet as they would have in Johannesburg. It was a new and freeing experience for me.
The house was modest and poorly furnished; the floor of unfinished board and the table a heavy, ancient thing with a flowered oilcloth attached by thumbtacks. We sat down in their home to eat before the meeting—the first time I ate a meal in the home of a black family. As I sat eating thick chicken soup and bread out of a chipped white enamel bowl, I remember thinking the most striking thing about it was that it seemed so normal. Your mother insisted upon helping to serve and clean up after the meal, and she laughed with them and their friends as she would have with her friends at university.
We left the house as a group just before the meeting
“I’ll do better than that,” she said as she stood up and began to gather the papers on the table to take home with her. “This week we’re going to the Odin Theatre. I’m going to show you the face of this country—the face they intend to beat into submission.”
“Okay,” I said. “Where’s the Odin Theatre?”
“You really don’t know, do you?” she said with a grin. “It’s at the center of Sophiatown.”
That first visit to Sophiatown changed the course of my life—not only because I saw so many black faces and black lives, but because for the first time, I saw who your mother really was. Most of all, it was the moment in my life when I first understood what it meant to be South African; when I recognized the richness of the identity that was being denied all of us. There was no going back from that moment.
Blacks made up eighty percent of the population, but they were invisible to us. We might speak a few words in one of the Bantu languages—Xhosa or Zulu or Shangaan—but we knew nothing of their customs or their mythology; nothing of their families or where and how they lived. Sometimes we didn’t know their family names, or even the names of their children.
There were exceptions, of course—people who recognized the inhumanity of apartheid, and who did their bit to make a difference. But for the most part it was a sort of willed ignorance—because if you acknowledge how evil the system is but continue to live in it and benefit from it, then you have to live each day with your hypocrisy. Most people aren’t evil enough—or strong enough—to do that, and it was easier to simply ignore the problem. We all did.
Sophiatown, 1953
Sophiatown was a hodge-podge of people—black, colored, Indian, Asian, and they all lived in relative harmony. They belonged. It was one of the few places in the country where they could own their homes and the land they lived on. I didn’t understand quite what that meant until Michaela and I drove up to the center of Sophiatown that first time in her father’s Volvo.
It was the first time I saw Christ the King Church, where Father Trevor Huddleston preached, and where Michaela helped in the Mission school. Father Huddleston was an Anglican priest who had brought his ministry from England, and he was the first white religious leader to come out strongly against apartheid. He was way ahead of his time, and the first time I met and heard him speak was on that winter evening at the Odin Theatre.
When your mother and I arrived in Sophiatown we drove straight to the home of Dahlia and Charlie, a young couple who worked for Father Huddleston. Dahlia was short and energetic, with a sweet face and an easy smile; Charlie towered over her, a big, serious man who moved quietly as if he didn’t want to reveal his true size. I remember thinking at the time that being so tall must have been even harder for a black man; that it’s difficult to fade into the background when one stands out in a crowd.
We were the only two white guests in the house. Our hosts were gracious and pleasant, and I felt truly welcome. They greeted us warmly, looked into my eyes instead of down at my feet as they would have in Johannesburg. It was a new and freeing experience for me.
The house was modest and poorly furnished; the floor of unfinished board and the table a heavy, ancient thing with a flowered oilcloth attached by thumbtacks. We sat down in their home to eat before the meeting—the first time I ate a meal in the home of a black family. As I sat eating thick chicken soup and bread out of a chipped white enamel bowl, I remember thinking the most striking thing about it was that it seemed so normal. Your mother insisted upon helping to serve and clean up after the meal, and she laughed with them and their friends as she would have with her friends at university.
We left the house as a group just before the meeting
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