[African Arguments] The first time my father was taken to prison, I was a toddler and did not know what prison was. When I asked where he had gone, my mother told me he had to go rest in a resort for a while. I was allowed to visit him on weekends.
For black people living in South Africa during apartheid, simply moving around the country was a fraught activity, let alone crossing its borders. This was especially the case for black women, who were “rock bottom of the racial pile”, as South African writer Lauretta Ngcobo expressed it. Coming to power in 1948 and ruling for…
