The Black Consciousness Movement and Documentary Evidence

In 2008, I conducted over seventy interviews for my research on the community development aspect of the South African Black Consciousness movement in the 1970s. This movement is mostly known through the figure of Steve Biko – the bold black university student who helped start the South African Students’ Organization, an exclusively black association that formulated Black Consciousness. This philosophy (or “attitude of mind” and “way of life”) challenged apartheid at various levels. Black Consciousness adherents believed that black people in South Africa in the late 1960s and early 1970s most needed a psychological liberation. They thus sought to promote a positive black identity and build black self-reliance. In Biko’s prominent student newsletter articles and other essays he declared that “the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed,” and explained that Black Consciousness sought to “infuse the black community with a new-found pride in themselves, their efforts, their value systems, their culture, their religion and their outlook on life.”^{Footnote 5} Black Consciousness activists taught that to truly transform society, black people had to act independent of white liberals. This strong political rejection of white liberals became a defining characteristic of the movement. As the movement became more political, it clashed with the state which led to a number of arrests and political bans designed to silence key activists. When Biko was banned to his home magisterial district in 1973, he became intimately involved in community development programs near his hometown of Ginsberg (a township of King William’s Town in the Eastern Cape) as an employee of the BCP. He established the BCP’s most successful programs in two villages in the region: the Zanempilo clinic in the village of Zinyoka, and a small leather-works factory in the village of Njwaxa.^{Footnote 6} He arguably maintained his leadership both in the national political scene and in the BCP until he died at the hands of the security police in September 1977.

My research focused on understanding the workings of the BCP’s projects and their impact on the Zinyoka and Njwaxa villages. This aspect of the movement has not received much scholarly attention. I discovered that it also did not leave much documentary evidence. The existing documentation on the BCP is sparse primarily because of apartheid police confiscations in the 1970s and the mismanagement or destruction of records in the early 1990s. As Stephanie Victor, historian at the Amathole Museum in King William’s Town commented, BCP records are scarce not because the organization was not important enough to survive in the written historical record, but rather precisely because of its significance.^{Footnote 7} Like other anti-apartheid organizations, because the apartheid government saw the Black Consciousness movement as a threat, state security forces sought to monitor and then destroy the movement. To avoid police repression, activists often avoided making records or destroyed their own records. Moreover, the police took most of the BCP’s existing documents, with the major confiscation occurring after Biko’s funeral in October 1977, when the state declared all Black Consciousness organizations illegal and closed down the BCP. Seemingly, government departments did not keep BCP records and assets. Aside from BCP reports intended for a broad audience and a few random papers in archival collections, none of the BCP records confiscated by state security forces can be found in government archives.^{Footnote 8} The little that remains suggests the police did not keep them or destroyed them before the transition to the African National Congress (ANC) led government in 1994.

Two archives hold records on the BCP – the Historical Papers in the William Cullen Library at the University of the Witwatersrand and the African Studies Documentation Centre at the University of South Africa. This is in part a reflection of the decisions of those building the archives, and a result of the history of the BCP and related organizations. The BCP began in 1971, as an arm of an ecumenical program called Special Project on Christian Action in Society (or Spro-cas 2 – a follow-up program to the Study Project on Christianity in Apartheid Society, Spro-cas 1). The archives of the program’s sponsors, the Christian Institute and the South African Council of Churches, held in the William Cullen Library, yield important financial information and correspondence about the BCP. The Cullen library also holds the papers of Spro-cas, sent to the library by Spro-cas director, Peter Randall, after the program ended in 1973. These papers provide crucial correspondence, meeting minutes, concept papers, and other organizational documents. Yet, the BCP became independent in 1973. It was after this that the organization experienced a transformation that pushed it to focus on local initiatives and Biko established its programs in the Eastern Cape. Thus, the Spro-cas records end when a critical part of BCP history begins.

Other collections supplemented my documentary research, but also proved incomplete. This paucity of sources is not specific only to liberation movement history. Those searching for sources in other places on the continent that struggle to maintain archives run up against similar situations.^{Footnote 9} I searched for information on BCP projects and the history of the places where the BCP worked in the Eastern Cape in government, church, newspaper, and donor collections. I scoured past issues of the major newspaper of the region, East London’s Daily Dispatch. The Records and Archives services of the Eastern Cape Provincial Department of Sport, Recreation, Arts, and Culture based in King William’s Town provided contextual information as well, although only a few records dated from the 1970s.^{Footnote 10} Since the BCP worked closely with churches to finance and house their projects, I hoped that church records would provide information missing elsewhere. Unfortunately, church records regarding parishes and church buildings connected to the BCP did not exist – in part because some records had been destroyed by fire.^{Footnote 11} This was the case with records of the presses which printed a BCP publication, the yearbook Black Review.^{Footnote 12} Records of BCP donors (both local and international) held some information, but nothing very substantial.

Oral History and the Actual vs. the Remembered Past

Since the written record offered little evidence, oral history interviews became even more critical for reconstructing the history of the BCP. I knew that to understand the impact its projects had on individuals and communities I would need to conduct interviews with people whose perspectives would not have featured in archives – such as village women whose reflections are often left out or overlooked in the written historical record. Yet, I also had to rely on oral sources for information about the workings of the BCP and its projects. I was aware of the limitations of oral history interviews. From the time oral history and oral traditions became accepted as legitimate sources for African history in mainstream western academia, scholars have analyzed the manipulation of these sources, the frailties of memory, and the dynamics of interviewing.^{Footnote 13} As I conducted interviews, I negotiated issues of memory, interviewee-interviewer dynamics, the influence of the present political and economic context, and the looming figure of Biko.

Because I interviewed people thirty years after the time period I was interested in, some memories had faded. To deal with this, I employed strategies that other oral historians have used. For example, I presented most interviewees with photographs printed in a 1976 BCP brochure to help trigger memories. In particular, I was able to gather much information about the Njwaxa leather-works employees pictured. The photographs also sparked discussion of their daily routine. I also used available written sources to elicit memories. For example, I asked people about a newspaper report that a regional minister of health was scheduled to speak at the opening of the clinic (though he would have opposed the clinic), and confirmed dates and reports on incidents described in interviews with newspaper accounts.^{Footnote 14}

In order to check sources against each other for accuracy, identify trends, and counter memories, I interviewed a large number of people with various perspectives. I conducted over seventy interviews in English and Xhosa with former Black Consciousness activists, former BCP employees, and residents of Zinyoka and Njwaxa.^{Footnote 15} This diverse group of people ranged from Bennie Khoapa, the director of the BCP, to the managers of the leather-works factory, the clinic’s nurses, and village residents who participated as employees or patients. I also interviewed various activists and community members not directly involved with the BCP. This included two nurses who had worked in the King William’s Town area, Anglican priest David Russell (based in the area 1966–1973), elderly men and women who had lived in the villages all of their lives, and the widow of the village headman who had opposed the building of the Zanempilo clinic in Zinyoka. This gave me a more rounded view of the BCP and its impact and helped me confirm information and trends. At times, I asked interviewees about information shared by others. For example, I asked Peter Jones, the person who kept the BCP’s financial books, about the amount of money one woman involved in the clinic craft group reported that she had earned. I also returned to a number of interviewees a second time. This allowed me to probe certain statements and ask new questions as well as hear stories told again in slightly different circumstances. This helped me better understand the person’s knowledge and their presentation of the past (discussed further below).^{Footnote 16}

I was mindful of my position as an interviewer and sought to mitigate problems of language and interviewee expectations. I am a white American who speaks Xhosa at an advanced level, but not fluently. At times, my female gender, ability to speak Xhosa, and young age worked to my advantage, especially when I met with older village women. Villagers appreciated my attempts to speak their language and viewed me and my frequent interview partner as part of the younger generation in need of an education (often addressing us as abantwana – children). Yet, I also knew I needed someone with better Xhosa skills and local knowledge to help me navigate the villages and reduce misunderstandings. For help, I turned to Lindani Ntenteni, at the time an employee of the Steve Biko Foundation who oversaw its social history programs. In addition to his local knowledge of the area and language, he also had training in oral history interviewing. After conducting a number of interviews in Zinyoka with his help, the Foundation proposed that we formally team up to video-record the interviews to contribute to a future audio-visual archive. My research and questions remained the focus, but the foundation provided the video equipment. Most of the interviews we video-recorded were conducted in Xhosa in the Njwaxa and Zinyoka villages. With the exception of two or three interviews, I conducted all other interviews for my project in English by myself.

Video-recording interviews with an employee of the Steve Biko Foundation had its benefits and drawbacks. First, it offered us the opportunity to conduct second interviews with those I had only audio-recorded. The greatest benefit, however, came when we presented videos to those we interviewed in the villages to give back to them and invite their responses. At the end of 2008, I presented a brief summary of my research and roughly edited videos I had compiled with a local film maker at functions the Steve Biko Foundation and I organized in Zinyoka and Njwaxa. Presenting interview clips and my conclusions to these audiences invited further comments by interviewees and allowed them to respond to other interviewees and correct any misunderstandings I might have.^{Footnote 17} Responses of interviewees during these gatherings generally reinforced what people had already said, but also brought out disagreements. For example, villagers highlighted the friction between the headman and the clinic in Zinyoka, with the headman’s widow and daughter in attendance and able to respond. In Njwaxa, I presented some clips of interviewees laughing as they remembered encounters with security police. After watching these clips, one man in Njwaxa stressed the importance of remembering the restrictive and dangerous political climate of the 1960s and 1970s, even though some may laugh about it.

One of the drawbacks of teaming up with the Steve Biko Foundation was that interviewing with an employee of the Steve Biko Foundation and a camera may have encouraged people to praise Biko more than they would have otherwise. Nostalgia and praise of Biko already made it difficult to understand how the BCP worked and who else was involved. The influence of nostalgia on people’s narratives of the past was clear. For example, activists fondly remembered the camaraderie they felt while working at the Zanempilo clinic, often stating that the clinic staff worked like a family and the clinic felt like home. Even the vivid stories of police harassment that repeatedly came up in interviews could be nostalgic. Stories of police stupidity related by interviewees provided proof of activists’ small victories in a dangerous, yet exciting time. BCP employee and activist Thoko Mpumlwana commented on the paradox of fondly remembering such politically dangerous times: “The danger of that too, you may end up saying, ‘Hayi, times were better then,’ and meanwhile, no, you are just romanticizing the past.”^{Footnote 18} The current situation of many villagers often served as a point of comparison between the present and the past that favored the past. At times, interviewees clearly highlighted their present suffering in hopes that the Foundation or connections I may have would lead to a revival of the programs or some economic benefit. Yet, villagers also talked about their current economic and political struggles in order to contrast the current situation with a time filled with the promise of improved health care provision and economic opportunities. ANC-dominated politics also made interviewees more inclined to praise the efforts of Black Consciousness activists in former times. The BCP and its projects had been killed by the apartheid state in their prime, leaving them immune from the kind of criticism that people aimed at the present government.

Indeed, Biko and the BCP shared a martyr status which made them powerful symbols. In life, Biko was a charismatic and central figure of the Black Consciousness movement and the BCP. His death at the hands of the security police elevated him even more as a self-sacrificing hero. The police decisively shut the BCP down while people were still reeling from Biko’s death. This made the loss of jobs and clinic services the BCP provided in the villages even more devastating in 1977 and later in people’s memories. Furthermore, by the time I interviewed people in 2008, the nation and local groups had already celebrated Biko as a struggle hero. 12 September 1997 marked the twentieth anniversary of his death. In that year, to mention but a few remembrances among many, then President Nelson Mandela dedicated the Biko statue in East London, the Biko home, and the Steve Biko Garden of Remembrance in King William’s Town as national heritage sites. The John Vorster Bridge crossing the Buffalo River on East London’s west side was renamed Biko Bridge on the same day. Many written narratives focus on Biko’s life and death to explain the history of the Black Consciousness movement. Few highlight his faults. As a result, Biko is more often remembered as a political genius or a saint.^{Footnote 19} Commemorations of Biko in 1997 and the subsequent work of the Steve Biko Foundation have reinforced this pattern, along with its popular appeal. Memorial lectures, commemorations in King William’s Town and Zinyoka, and other various programs now run out of a new Steve Biko Center in Ginsberg have further focused people’s attention on Biko.

An atmosphere of commemoration, along with reminiscences shared amongst activists and villagers, has helped form a collective positive memory about Biko and the BCP’s projects. Most people wanted to tell stories about Biko. They likely expected him to be the primary interest of anyone coming to inquire about the BCP projects and wanted to highlight their personal interactions with a martyred hero. Many interviewees contributed to a celebratory history of Biko with stories of the service he rendered and his genius for managing projects. This came from BCP employees and villagers. For example, Thoko Mpumlwana “always [tells] people about Steve’s intervention” when she first attempted to write a report for the BCP’s yearly publication Black Review. She narrated to me how Biko helped sharpen her research and writing skills, more than any university education she had.^{Footnote 20} Her sister-in-law, Vuyo Mpumlwana, the first manager of the Njwaxa leather-works, remembered Biko as having an extraordinary ability to bring out the best in people and make things happen, commenting: “He could serve Coke in Iceland.”^{Footnote 21} The second manager of the leather-works, Voti Samela, talked about the way Biko required reports from each project manager and fostered unity among BCP staff.^{Footnote 22} Both he and Mziwoxolo Ndzengu, the ambulance driver and clerk at Zanempilo, told of times when Biko took people aside individually to effectively and respectfully deal with staff members. “He used to be a very intelligent person,” Ndzengu added, citing the fact that Biko had studied medicine and law.^{Footnote 23} Zanempilo nurse Nompumelelo Mcilongo remembered how appreciative Biko was to the staff, explaining that even when all the doctors were imprisoned, he made sure the nurses received pay higher than state-employed nurses.^{Footnote 24} Nurse Nontobeko Moletsane declared that Biko was her role model in the way he surpassed barriers, taught her to respect some particularly troublesome patients, and sacrificed for others.^{Footnote 25}

Villagers also shared stories about Biko’s benevolence. Residents of Njwaxa and Zinyoka declared that because he provided jobs for villagers, he brought the end of poverty. Even if they did not have personal interactions with him, they described him as always busy, working for the people. Zinyoka residents also talked about how Biko built a new church building for the Anglican Church in return for allowing the BCP to build Zanempilo on its land. One man stated that everything one could see on the plot of land, “says Biko.”^{Footnote 26} Another remarked that he immediately had faith in the clinic project when he saw Biko and Reverend David Russell were behind it.^{Footnote 27} Others remembered the parties held at the clinic where everyone was invited, regardless of their education level. Thenjiwe Nondalana, a hired cleaner at Zanempilo, recounted the time when Biko sent her and some other clinic staff members on a trip to Johannesburg and to visit Mamphela Ramphele (an activist and Zanempilo’s head medical doctor who had then been banned to Tzaneen in the North). When a thief stole all of their goods, Biko apparently sent money so they could buy new clothes – for her, an example of his humanity or ubuntu.^{Footnote 28} Some interviewees repeatedly returned to Biko, even when asked various other questions. Praise from Njwaxa and Zinyoka villagers reached high levels of admiration. Interviewees made emotional and animated comments such as “I loved him so much because of how he saved my life,” and “I likened [him] to Jesus who chose to die for the person that I am.”^{Footnote 29}

Beyond the nostalgia and praise of Biko, however, there was more to the story. Biko overshadowed other important historical actors who had played key roles in BCP projects. For example, although Biko rarely visited the Njwaxa leather-works (it was outside of his restricted area), former employee Nontozande Nofence James gave him the credit for building it. It was only when I asked her specifically about Malusi Mpumlwana, the BCP employee who actually set up the project (and Thoko Mpumlwana’s husband), that she remembered him. Furthermore, although it was evident that Njwaxa residents revered Samela, the leather-works factory’s long time manager who moved to the village around 250 miles (400 kilometers) away from his home to run the project, Biko received more praise for sacrificing himself than Samela. Praise of Biko also eclipsed tensions and difficulties within the projects, important elements for explaining the history of the BCP. Obstacles the BCP faced helped shape the direction it took and reveal the extent of its success. In interviews dominated by memories of Biko, some denied that there was opposition to the projects in the communities, that the projects had any financial trouble, or that any of the employees experienced interpersonal tensions with other staff members. To do so may have put them in opposition to an accepted narrative of a heroic history. For example, some Zinyoka residents denied that anyone in the community did not like the clinic, though other interviewees and newspaper sources confirmed that the local authorities campaigned to discredit it and hindered its progress. In Njwaxa, many interviewees denied that the workers ever quarreled, though the absolute absence of interpersonal tensions seemed unlikely. In short, these memories did not give me an accurate picture of the past or Biko.

Interviewees told emotionally moving and impassioned stories about Biko. Their emotional testimonies of the personal impact he and the BCP had on them made their testimonies come across as deeply personal and sincere. What was I to do then with these stories about Biko? Could I find a balance between acknowledging these suspiciously overly positive personal expressions and getting at what really happened? I could not throw them out or ignore Biko (though at times I was tempted to do so). I found myself in a similar position to Cheikh Babou as he sought to write the history of the Muridiyya Brotherhood in Senegal.^{Footnote 30} The history of its revered founder, Amadu Bamba, is central to the history of the brotherhood. Babou thus dealt with many hagiographical traditions, especially as an insider in the brotherhood. Instead of throwing out all of these traditions or interviews as embellished stories with no historical value, Babou critically analyzed them for information and meaning. I was similarly able to use my interviews as valuable sources. To do so, I attempted to carefully generate the interviews and later examined them critically. For example, during the interviewing process, I respectfully pushed and probed interviewees. Interviewing people with various perspectives also provided a fuller picture. As Babou and others have demonstrated, we can also examine interviews and other sources for clues about the challenges and complexities that may be hidden by praise or nostalgia. After conducting all of my interviews, I analyzed the transcripts and interview process to ascertain trends, look for divergent views, and explore silences. I found certain aspects of the interviews that indicated nostalgia and praise of Biko did not distort every memory.

As I conducted interviews, I sought to respectfully push or challenge interviewees – something Seekings suggested historians do more of in order to get at complexities and contradictions.^{Footnote 31} Often, I let people praise Biko, then followed up with questions about other people, interpersonal relationships, BCP challenges, or specific aspects of the daily work of the projects. I probed interviewees, asking questions as an ignorant outsider or presenting comments and stories from another (often anonymous) person and inviting a response. For example, I asked Zinyoka residents about views of Dr. Mamphela Ramphele working as a black female doctor or asked factory employees in Njwaxa about the consequences of arriving late at work. Other interviews provided glimpses of tensions and problems as people narrated stories, elaborated on statements made in passing, or speculated as to the causes of police harassment. All of this helped me draw out narratives or information that complicated the generally positive construction of Biko’s life and BCP history.

Interviewing numerous community and BCP members with different perspectives also helped me get at the challenges and tensions Biko and the BCP faced. For example, I made it a point to interview the widow of the Zinyoka headman who opposed Biko and the clinic. This helped me understand the headman’s role in the village and his political position. I even returned to this woman alone without a recorder and an employee of the Steve Biko Foundation. I suspected without a recording device and someone linked to Biko, she would feel free to answer a potentially sensitive question about her husband’s opposition (though she did not elaborate on the source of contention between her husband and Biko beyond declaring with a shrug that it was just politics). The functions the Steve Biko Foundation and I organized also brought out conflicting perspectives that confirmed the complexities and tensions underlying a general tendency to praise Biko and remember the BCP nostalgically.

I also put the interviews in conversations with each other when I examined their content after conducting all of the interviews. In doing so, it became clear that while villagers and rank and file BCP employees were more apt to praise Biko uncritically, those who worked with Biko as his peers offered more critiques. BCP employees or villagers like James who did not associate with Biko, closely viewed him as a benefactor. Bennie Khoapa, on the other hand, was Biko’s employer. While he gave Biko credit for building up the BCP in the Eastern Cape and acknowledged his good characteristics, Khoapa also did not shy away from pointing out Biko’s weaknesses. He even concluded that “Steve died just at the right time,” because “he was beginning to actually behave in a way that I called irresponsible [because of the difficulties of political repression].” He continued, “You could easily have found Steve’s death in a drinking place, because somebody had set it up like that. So… I said better this way than what would be the alternative.”^{Footnote 32} Ramphele, the head doctor at the Zanempilo clinic and one-time BCP Eastern Cape branch manager, was also Biko’s colleague – and girlfriend. She provided more critical assessments of the BCP’s work and Biko as well. For example, while she proclaimed she was destined to be Biko’s partner, she also wrote about his frustrating habits and multiple affairs.^{Footnote 33} Thus probing and listening to different perspectives brought out the complexities of Biko’s character that few have acknowledged.

I also analyzed the silences – what did it mean, for example, that female employees of the Njwaxa leather-works denied that there were any personal tensions between them or that few Zinyoka villagers said anyone had trouble being examined by a female doctor? Any recollections of tensions between workers at the Njwaxa factory were eclipsed by the fond memories of a time when the women could earn wages within their village. The women said they were constantly busy and did not have time to chat; yet, they recalled enjoying working with each other without any interpersonal conflicts. As I examined this further, I concluded that the way these women remembered working at the factory indicated that associations between Njwaxa women contributed to the smooth operations of the leather-works. Women who worked at the leather-works included sisters and relatives. Certainly, tensions between villagers and amongst relatives did exist in Njwaxa, but working with close relatives on a project that focused on elevating the wellbeing of the community helped create a positive work environment.^{Footnote 34} Furthermore, the women I interviewed remembered the names of the women who worked with them, but had difficulty remembering the men, even when presented with pictures of some of them. This may have been due to the fact that there were not as many male employees, but also because the women had a closer association with each other. A member of the women’s craft group sponsored by the clinic in Zinyoka provided another explanation for the silence on interpersonal tensions at the clinic: perhaps they took pains to work well with others because they wanted to keep their jobs. As Dina Mjondo remarked, “A person who is hungry” learns quickly and “works well” because “you don’t want to get fired.”^{Footnote 35}

Sources indicated that Ramphele had some difficulties being taken seriously as a young, black, female doctor; however, the general silence by villagers about these tensions indicated to me that notions of gender roles within Zinyoka may have changed. Activists and employees had better memories of resistance to Ramphele as a doctor. For example, Malusi Mpumlwana indicated that “there were always jokes about whether she was up to it.”^{Footnote 36} Nurse Moletsane also remembered that they had to “talk sense” to men at times who did not want to be seen by a woman doctor.^{Footnote 37} Yet, while almost certainly the idea of a young, black, female doctor heading the clinic took some getting used to, both male and female Zinyoka residents interviewed in 2008 would not acknowledge that as a problem. One explained this by admitting that when men realized they had no other choice, they accepted it.^{Footnote 38} Others remarked that Ramphele’s respectful and kind nature put patients at ease and a comment that Ramphele was a mother more than a doctor showed that the gendered role of women as nurturers carried over into accepting Ramphele as a doctor in the eyes of some.^{Footnote 39} In contrast to those who remembered the challenges that she faced amongst villagers, in her own writings Ramphele asserted that her novelty combined with her professional status gave her power and respect.^{Footnote 40} Indeed, villagers expressed respect and admiration for Ramphele who they often praised along with Biko because of the much-needed health care service she provided. The fact that few villagers acknowledged a problem in interviews in 2008 shows that Ramphele’s work and subsequent elevation in the eyes of the community (whether or not exaggerated) meant they accepted that at least some young black women could become doctors, a predominantly male profession at the time.

Searching the silences is part of looking for meaning in the way that people remember as opposed to focusing merely on what they remember to gain historical information. As other scholars have shown, what people believe to have happened and how they present the past is just as important to understand as what actually happened. In fact, for Alessandro Portelli, the meaning of the past is the “precious element” of oral history.^{Footnote 41} His pioneering work on memory and meaning surrounding events in Italy, along with works by Africanists such as Luise White on rumor and Justin Willis on dissonance in life histories, demonstrate how oral history provides insights into various aspects of present societies and individual interpretations of the past. It can tell us how people construct social or psychological truths, how and why people place themselves in their societies, and how people and communities try to understand and deal with the past.^{Footnote 42}

When evaluating the interviews I had conducted, I began to view the narratives I heard as individual historical interpretations of personal, community, and BCP history. This helped me understand what this part of history meant to people in their present context. Thus, even if they exaggerated his role, the way people remembered Biko was revealing. Many have claimed Biko as a progenitor of their particular politics, identity, or beliefs. They have done this for political and social reasons, ranging from the ANC celebrating Biko in 1997 to foster political unity, to the “kids of the rich” and black economic empowerment executives who Ahmed Veriava and Prishani Naidoo decried for making Biko fashionable and for portraying him as a supporter of their “neoliberal present.”^{Footnote 43} Political and social trends factored in to some of the interviews I conducted as well. For example, some villagers who emphasized their interactions with Biko were giving proof of a connection to a revered celebrity who ended up on the right side of history. Others perhaps feared that even acknowledging that people in the community had opposed Biko’s projects and initially rejected Ramphele because she was a female doctor would have cast a negative light on them and their community. Similarly, former BCP employees or activists may have refrained from critiquing Biko because they did not want to appear as opposing the freedom and black self-self-confidence Biko is generally seen as representing.

In the interviews I conducted, memories and praise of Biko also symbolized what the BCP projects meant to villagers (either individually or collectively) – an affirmation of racial equality, human dignity, and the potential for black self-reliance. Sometimes this was expressed explicitly. When asked what they understood Biko’s goals to be, for instance, a number of villagers talked about how he wanted to help black people stand on their own. Sometimes the meaning and impact the BCP and Biko had on individuals came through the interviews in other ways. For example, one woman who was part of the clinic’s craft group, Nonzwakazi Dleb’suku, claimed that because of her skilled work, she at one point earned R500 per month. This figure is high (Biko earned R400 then R500 per month as BCP Branch Executive and a 1976 BCP report states that the women who helped Njwaxa earned R20–R30 per month); but, Dleb’suku’s exaggeration signifies that she felt her wages had an enormous impact on her life. Dleb’suku also measured the change in her life by what she was able to eat. Before the clinic came to the community, she ate maize mealies. After she started the work at the clinic, she claimed she and her family always had food in the house and she was able to pay her children’s school fees. Dleb’suku later said that having this economic security increased her sense of human dignity.^{Footnote 44}

Furthermore, while I first viewed nostalgia as a barrier to getting at what actually happened, I later saw nostalgia as important for understanding the meaning of the past for those I interviewed. As Field and Jacob Dlamini have demonstrated, nostalgic reminiscences give us clues as to what people long for in the present. This helps us understand how they interpret their present and their past. Dlamini argued that when black South Africans express nostalgia for township life during apartheid they are longing for the social order and respect for elders they experienced in those times – order and respect they see missing in contemporary society.^{Footnote 45} In the case of Biko, Xolela Mangcu argued that when people reminisce about Biko or wonder how South Africa would be different if he had survived, they are expressing a social wish for a “return to the kind of leadership that is underpinned by solidarity with the people.”^{Footnote 46}

Indeed, praising Biko and the BCP in comparison with the current government and society provided a way for villagers to express their frustrations with their present situation. In Njwaxa, for example, residents compared recent government approaches to development within the community to the BCP’s leather-works factory in the 1970s. Years after the factory was destroyed by security police, the government constructed three white buildings in Njwaxa for community projects. Some people tried using this space for small sewing and bead-making projects. When they discovered the government required them to pay rent, they became angry. Residents accused those who built these structures of being greedy. The three white government buildings stood empty and unused when I interviewed residents in 2008, a reminder of the frustrations that came with disingenuous government initiatives. On the other hand, the nostalgic way village residents remembered the leather-works project demonstrated that they viewed the BCP leather-works as a symbol of black self-reliance and people-centered leadership. In addition to understanding the actual workings of the factory in the 1970s then, oral histories also showed me the meaning of that history to Njwaxa villagers as they looked back into the past from 2008. They used the history of the BCP and Biko to interpret the present and hold the government to a certain standard. Understanding the contemporary meaning of these oral histories was thus just as valuable for analyzing the significance of the remembered past as using oral histories to get at the actual past.

Emotion as Evidence

When working to understand what these oral histories meant, I came to recognize the importance of taking emotion into account. In order to prepare transcripts to be deposited in South African archives, I returned to some of my interview audio-recordings some time after having analyzed and written about them. As I listened to the interviews again, the emotional statements interviewees made about Biko and the BCP’s impact on their lives struck me as if I heard them for the first time. For example, when asked why he stopped working as an ambulance driver at Zanempilo, Sido Hlaula paused while he attempted to prevent himself from crying. He then commented that things were “never right” after the police took over the clinic, and that seeing this change was “like maybe seeing a child being hurt (...) wasn’t nice at all.”^{Footnote 47} In my effort to critically examine the interview process and its results, I had almost forgotten what it was like to be in the interview with a person who expressed gratitude, grief, or excitement. The interview experience can be an empowering and emotional one for interviewees, especially those who have not been interviewed before.^{Footnote 48} As Radikobo Ntsimane has stated, oral history is a “human encounter that can have a profound effect on people’s lives.”^{Footnote 49} I remembered that I had felt this as I finished interviewing in 2008. The emotion and effort people put into the interviews signaled to me that they felt the subject of the interviews was important to them, and not just for positioning themselves on the right side of politics or as a friend of a celebrity.

With all the critical analysis that needs to accompany the use of oral sources in constructing the history of South African liberation movements, historians need to allow the emotional aspects of interviews to impact their interpretations. This goes beyond just recognizing that the interview process can be emotional. Paying attention to emotions in interviews can help us analyze the impact of the past on individuals and understand their constructions of the past. As Joanna Bornat argued, we can view emotions as part of life stories because “emotion may determine what is available in memory narratives.”^{Footnote 50} This is the case with positive and negative emotions tied to spaces, events, and relationships. While it is not my focus here, work on violence and oral history clearly demonstrates how emotionally traumatic experiences affect what individuals are willing to remember and narrate. Field’s work on displaced communities in South Africa’s Western Cape has shown how emotions were tied to memories of places and times disrupted by apartheid forced removals. He argued that recognizing these emotions helps us understand the deep impact of displacement on individuals and their sense of self and community.^{Footnote 51} Furthermore, in her work on the Soweto uprisings of 1976, Helena Pohlandt-McCormick wrote that although historians find the space of “expressions of human nature,” “difficult to navigate in terms of reliability, ‘evidence,’ and fact,” these expressions can bring out “the rich texture of a historical event, the individual experience of it, the structural features (…) that underpin it, and the changing individual and collective understandings of it.”^{Footnote 52} Although Pohlandt-McCormick and Field dealt with violence and trauma, the same can apply to other situations where emotions can deepen our understanding of lived history and its significance to individuals.

Taking emotions seriously in our analyses can even make a difference in determining whether or not an event, movement, or development is historically significant. Two particular emotional aspects of the interviews I conducted proved instructive upon reanalysis: the way interviewees related stories of police harassment and praised or mourned Biko. I have described above how interviewees talked about Biko and how I viewed that both as an obstacle and a window into what the past meant for those I interviewed. The way stories of police harassment flowed with ease, animation, and detail was evidence of the intensity and frequency of these encounters. The pace, voice inflection, and specificity with which interviewees told these stories conveyed emotions ranging from amusement and triumph to fear and pain. Nondalana, the clinic cleaner, laughed as she remembered hiding important documents in linen she pretended to wash during a police visit.^{Footnote 53} Ndzengu, the ambulance driver for the clinic, related details surrounding his detention and torture at the hands of security police – he remembered playing cards while waiting for dinner at the time police came to arrest him, the kinds of details that become seared in memories during these intense experiences.^{Footnote 54} I was initially unsure of how to deal with stories of police harassment. The way they featured in interviews indicated their importance, but I had to search for their significance to my project beyond merely showing that state oppression was one of the BCP’s major challenges or merely reflecting the drama surrounding the BCP’s closure.

Feedback on my analysis and scholarship on emotions in oral history sparked further examination of how the emotions expressed provided insight into the impact of Biko, the BCP, and their historical context. In my writings about my research, I argue that the BCP succeeded in nurturing self-reliance and human dignity amongst Njwaxa and Zinyoka villagers, even though the state shut BCP projects down after a few years of operation. Insightful readers questioned whether the BCP really did inspire self-reliance if villagers claimed it was Biko who saved their lives or if no one in the villages had reinstituted BCP projects after 1977. Aside from a few comments from villagers that people were afraid to rekindle BCP projects, it was the man in Njwaxa who reminded us of the perilous times of the 1970s that pushed me to consider the stories of police harassment further. While most activists related stories with humor, the emotion and fast pace with which they told these stories signified the intensity of the political danger at that time. Stories of the closure of BCP projects were not simply dramatic, but reflected the trauma of the event for villagers. Recognizing the emotions linked to these events helped me understand the reality of the fear people felt in a politically hostile environment. This became important evidence to take into account when assessing the BCP’s lasting impact. It explained in large part why villagers and activists made the decisions and acted in the way they did; in other words, it accounted for why they would have hesitated to revive or continue with projects even if they had obtained a greater sense of self-reliance.

With their philosophy of a psychological liberation and self-reliance, Black Consciousness activists sought to change the way black people felt about themselves. Thus, interviewee emotions are critical to understanding if activists succeeded in doing so. The emotions expressed in the interviews I conducted showed that in the case of the BCP, even if the goal of building self-reliance amongst villagers was not fully realized at the time or exaggerated thirty years later, activists did succeed in improving the villagers’ sense of human dignity. Even if the BCP projects did not last, the memory of how people felt did. I looked at the grief and despair at Biko’s death and the gratitude and admiration expressed while telling stories of him as evidence of the sense of self-worth he and fellow activists inspired in villagers in the 1970s and as they remembered later. Praise of Biko may have been influenced by a collective memory and a contemporary celebratory climate, but it was also tied to how people had felt about themselves while involved in BCP projects. More than one villager expressed that they had gained a sense of human dignity through the projects and their associations with Black Consciousness activists. They were devastated when this was taken away from them by the state. Focusing on the good that Biko and the BCP did may have been a way to deal with the pain of that loss. Thirty years later, villagers expressed this in oral history interviews and requests to the government and the Steve Biko Foundation to help them regain what they had before – what they felt they deserved as black people.

Appropriately recognizing and respecting emotions also has the potential to help prevent over-interpretation. While I have discussed how silences can be revealing, I also recognize that there is danger in analyzing silences. We can read too much into what people do not say. As Bornat cautioned: “To look and listen for silences, experiences or relationships which are unspoken or unexpressed, is acknowledged as appropriate and rewarding, but to go beyond this and to seek out subconscious motivations, or ways of thinking, is perhaps to risk over interpretation and a distancing of the interviewee from their own words.”^{Footnote 55} Historians have also warned us not to overstate the power of interviewers in generating oral history. They have reminded us that interviewees are active agents who interpret their past, may push their own agendas, or share authority.^{Footnote 56} Thus, we need to take care when analyzing the impact of the interviewer’s position and the context of the interview on silences. The same goes for what interviewees do say. There is also danger in dismissing what we deem as overly positive or negative memories and statements. If we distrust too much, we can discount very strong beliefs of interviewees, an act which would not be accurate or fair to them. After conducting research on the social history of the Eastern Cape, Anne Mager wrote, “For my part, I was simply unable to sever utterances from bodies, emotions, and spatial and social relations. I found myself deeply moved by people as beings steeped in lived experiences and feelings. (…) It was simply impossible for me to read the stories that I had gathered dispassionately, as disembodied texts.”^{Footnote 57} If we “sever utterances from bodies, emotions, and spatial and social relations” we may miss an important part of history, even the lived experience.

This is not to say that we should not critically examine oral sources in conjunction with other sources, probe and push interviewees, and analyze the interviews for further clues. We must also ask if the emotions expressed are genuine. This can be complicated, especially when dealing with grief or trauma. It may seem disrespectful or even damaging to question someone truly grieving if their emotions are authentic. Historians also are not in the business of psychological or emotional therapy. Yet, those who focus on emotion or trauma and grief should still analyze the interview process that generated these expressions to at least help readers understand the various factors that could influence the interview. I find this aspect missing in Field and Portelli’s more recent works, for example. Although Field acknowledges that the current political context and his identity as a white male South African may have shaped the responses of his Coloured interviewees, he does not analyze in depth how language differences affected the ability of the Rwandan refugees he interviewed to articulate their imagined memories.^{Footnote 58} Portelli analyzed how women and men expressed grief in different ways in his book on the meaning of the Fosse Ardeatine massacre in Nazi controlled Rome, but did not discuss how the interview process or his gender as the interviewer may have shaped these expressions.^{Footnote 59}