South Africa: Overcoming Apartheid

Interview Segment

Eddie Daniels interviewed by Ruendree Govinder
May 27, 2005 Cape Town, South Africa.


"Africans would come to me and ask me to make their photos fair so they could apply for a so-called Coloured ID. It may seem quite a trivial request, but to these people it was so important." [7:04]

Eddie Daniels, who operated a photography studio, understood the many reasons why some African and Coloured people asked him to lighten their photos to try to be classified of as different race.

Eddie Daniels, who was classified as Coloured, was born in District Six in Cape Town and worked on a whaling vessel and in the mines in Namibia. He joined the Liberal Party because it was a nonracial and anti-government organization. He joined the African Resistance Movement (ARM), which began sabotage actions a little before the African National Congress’ UmKhonto we Sizwe armed wing. Daniels was found guilty of sabotage and was imprisoned on Robben Island for 15 years. He joined the African National Congress after he was released from prison. He has written about his imprisonment in There and Back: Robben Island 1964-1979.

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