The Mark Gevisser collection comprises the material collected during research done for Mark Gevisser’s biography of Thabo Mbeki entitled The Dream Deferred (2007). The material mainly consists of secondary research sources in the forms of newspaper clippings, journal articles, book extracts, public and internal ANC documents (such as press statements, minutes of meetings and correspondence), Mbeki’s own writing (speeches and articles) and Gevisser’s notebooks. The collection further includes audio cassettes of interviews conducted, for the most part, by Mark Gevisser with family, friends and colleagues of Thabo Mbeki.

The Mbeki biography starts with an exploration of the familial roots of the ‘non-traditional’ Moeranes and Mbekis; the meeting and coming of political awareness of Mbeki’s parents Epainette Moerane and Govan Mbeki in 1930s Durban; their move to the rural Mbewuleni in the Transkei, Thabo Mbeki’s birthplace and Mbeki’s childhood and schooling in Mbewuleni, Queenstown and Alice (Lovedale) during the years missionary schools were transferred to state schools under Bantu education. The following part explores Mbeki’s move to Johannesburg in 1960 to study for his A levels through Sached in order to do a British degree; his joining of the SACP and his departure into exile in 1962 to study economics at the Sussex University. The next part covers the period from 1962 to 1971 when Thabo Mbeki studied in Britain, against the backdrop of the Rivonia trial and imprisonment of the ANC high command back home, and later at the Lenin Institute in Moscow; Thabo Mbeki’s involvement with the international anti-apartheid and anti-racialist movements as well as youth groups YSS and SASA and his relationship to the ‘new’, anti-Soviet left. The following section tracks Thabo Mbeki’s return to Africa in 1971; his marriage to Zanele in 1974; his time spent working in Zambia, Swaziland and Nigeria in the ANC’s ‘Revolutionary Council’ as well as the ANC’s relationship with the IFP, and the disintegration of the Mbekis’ familial bonds. The final three sections look at the period of negotiations from 1978 to 1994, Thabo Mbeki and other exiles’ return home from 1990 and lastly the Mandela and Mbeki presidencies from 1994 onwards. The chapters on negotiations explore Mbeki’s role in turning the ANC’s public image around in the 1980s whilst overseeing the Department of Information and Publicity, and in securing a negotiated settlement. The final part focuses on Mbeki’s relationship with Mandela and the manner in which he handled debates about the economy, the arms deal, racial reconciliation and the AIDS crisis.

The Forced Migration Studies Programme at the University of Witwatersrand conducted oral history interviews on the Xenophobia violence that occurred in South Africa in 2008. The interviews were conducted by students in the Forced Migration studies Programme with foreign nationals in the Gauteng area. No audio recording were donated, but the edited transcripts of these interviews forms part of the collection as well as the consent forms signed by the interviewees.

From March - September 2013, SAHA conducted an oral history and photographic project exploring the legacy of the 1913 Land Act in three communities in South Africa in order to mark the centenary of this act.

The three communities identified for this project were Driefontein, Mogopa and Braklaagte. TRAC (Transvaal Rural Action Committee) of the Black Sash was active in all three communities, particularly in relation to forced removals and forced incorporation into homelands.

Preparatory archival research was undertaken in order to devise relevant research questions to inform the oral history collection process. Interviews were then conducted in each community, to explore issues including the role of women as agents for resistance (including the Women's Rural Movement), modes of divisions within communities, as well as an exploration of both state and community tactics for resistance.

Gille de Vlieg contributed to the project through photographing the oral history process to create a body of contemporary images to contrast with her archival images in the Gille de Vlieg Photographic collection (AL3274).

Contained in this collection are the materials produced and collected in the course of Land Act legacy Project. This includes the oral history materials, photographs taken during the project, materials collected from community members and project documentation.

Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr was born in Cape Town on 20 March 1894, the younger son of Andries Brink Hofmeyr (1851-1897) and his second wife Deborah Catherina Boyers. His father was business manager of the newspaper Ons Land, Secretary of the Afrikaner Bond and a cousin of J.H. 'Onze Jan' Hofmeyr. His mother, a member of an old Stellenbosch family, was a strong imperious character, who had an important influence on her younger son.

Hofmeyr was a brilliant student, with an intellect bordering on genius. He matriculated, aged twelve, at the South African College School in 1906, first in the school and third in the Cape Colony. In 1909 he obtained a B.A. with first-class honours at the South African College, winning the university gold medal for literature and a Rhodes scholarship. Before going to Balliol College, Oxford, in 1913, he took a Science B.A. and a first-class Classics M.A. His career was equally brilliant at Oxford where he gained a double first in classical honour moderations in 1914 and literae humaniores in 1916. In this year he returned to South Africa, lecturing in classics at the South African College and, in December, being appointed Professor of Classics at the South African School of Mines and Technology, Johannesburg, later the University of the Witwatersrand. This was the start of an illustrious career at 'Wits' where he became principal in 1919, vice-chancellor (then an honorary post) in 1926 and chancellor in 1938.

Hofmeyr left the academic world in 1924 to become Administrator of the Transvaal, thus marking the beginning of his political career. He was a successful administrator, attracting the notice of men such as J.B.M. Hertzog and J.C. Smuts. In 1929 he won a by-election at Johannesburg North and helped to play a considerable part in welding the National and South African. Parties into the United Party. He became Minister of Education, the Interior and Public Health in 1933. His liberal attitude towards Blacks, Coloureds and Indians embarrassed the United Party, despite which he remained in the cabinet, changing his portfolio to Labour and Mines in 1936, until 1938 when he resigned over the appointment of A.P.J. Fourie to the senate as a member specially qualified to speak for the Blacks. He resigned from the United Party caucus in 1939 over the Asiatics (Transvaal Land and Trading) Bill but remained in parliament as an independent United Party supporter.

The outbreak of war led to his returning to the cabinet as Minister of Finance and Education and during the war years he worked unstintingly for the war effort, shouldering much of the burden when Smuts was overseas and he was acting prime minister. It was felt by many that his liberalism cost the United Party the election in 1948, although Hofmeyr himself retained his seat.

Many honours were bestowed on him. In 1945 he was awarded a D.C.L. by Oxford University and was sworn in as a privy councillor; in 1946 he was made an honorary fellow of Balliol and an honorary bencher of Gray's Inn. He was a brilliant administrator, an indefatigable worker and a liberal thinker but essentially a simple man who enjoyed boys' camps and cricket. His early death (on 3 December 1948) was a tragedy for South Africa.

Bibliography

Dictionary of South African Biography, Vol. II, p.309

A. Paton. South African tragedy: the life and times of Jan Hofmeyr (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1965)