A single massacre could convert an apartheid insider into its leading critic

Evidence

Beyers Naude provides the classic case. A Dutch Reformed Church minister and former Broederbond member (his father had helped to form the Bond), Naude became deeply disillusioned with apartheid especially after the Sharpeville massacre (in 1960, police shot dead 69 black people protesting their lack of free movement). He “converted” as a consequence to a caustic critic of apartheid and an extraordinary advocate of nonracialism, at great personal cost. The government first imprisoned and then banned him, condemning him to house arrest from 1977 to 1984. Following his release in 1985, Naude assumed the chairmanship of the South African Council of Churches, the association of leading anti-apartheid church organizations, succeeding Archbishop Tutu in the position. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1545

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: A Sharpeville massacre victim’s death converted an insider to anti-apartheid activism — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1545