The Unity Movement: Its Legacy in Historical Consciousness

A Principal's Perspective of School Integration: The First School to Integrate in Cape Town, South Africa

“…At the same time, there were many South Africans who disputed the designations and government oppression of African, Coloured, and Indian people. Beginning in the 1940s, even before apartheid, political and educational organizations like the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM) and the Teacher's League of South Africa (TLSA) disputed the racial distinctions (Chisholm, 1991;Nasson, 1990). Teachers who were members of the TLSA taught their students that there wasn't an African race, Coloured race, Indian race, or White race, but only the human race (TLSA members, personal communications, 1999).…”

“…There was definitely opposition to apartheid that pre-dated the mid-1970s. The TLSA were adamant in their opposition to apartheid's separation of the races and opposed all forms of racial discrimination (Chisholm 1991;Nasson 1990). The African National Congress (ANC), the current reigning government, led school boycotts in the 1950s following the Bantu Education Act (Kallaway, 1984).…”

Fiercely Non-Racial? Discourses and Politics of Race in the Non-European Unity Movement, 1943–70

“…The traditional position of Unity Movement thinkers has always been that race or racialism is a 'mere excrescence of capitalism', its existence the bondage of forms of false consciousness. 17 Writing in 2000, Crain Soudien echoed these sentiments. 'The movement was fiercely nonracial and challenged at every opportunity the racial labelling of South Africans.'…”