This oral history project was set up by the South African History Archive (SAHA) in 1990 after the unbanning of various political organisations with Tom Mathole as co-ordinator. The first step involved interviewing a selection of exiles that had returned to South Africa. This collection focuses on the circumstances leading up to exile, life in exile and the returnees' current perceptions of South Africa. The interviewees are: Angela Brown, Michael Kgoadi, Nontsikelelo Memela, Papi Moloto, Moosa Moolla, Selby Msimang, Sue Rabkin, Ngoako Ramathlodi, Pumla Williams, Bongiwe Njobe, Phola Mabizela and Soli Modise.

Not all the photographs in the SAHA Collections form part of the Original SAHA Photograph Collection. In order to retain the provenance of photographs from other collections, these photos have not been incorporated into the original photo collection, but have kept the call numbers of the collections to which they belong, such as AL2424 (JODAC), AL3051 (Hilda & Rusty Bernstein), AL2564 (Five Freedoms Forum), AL2566 (PLANACT), AL2686 (The Indian Community in the Transvaal), AL2719 (Centre for South-South relations), AL2937, AL2991 (Patrick Fitzgerald), AL3158 (Michael Harmel) AL3265 (Zenzo Nkobi). However, because of their format, all the photographs are stored together.

The images in this collection have been digitized by Africa Media Online, a Pietermaritzburg based organisation.

The photographs have been arranged in sections 1-28 according to subject matter. Although the original classification has been retained, the subsections have been renumbered due to inconsistency of the old numbering system.

This is a large and extensive collection, which had been donated to the periodicals section of the University of the Witwatersrand's Library. The following periodicals remain in the South African History Archive (SAHA) holdings: 'ANC Weekly News briefings', 1979-1984; 'Workers' Unity' (Organ of South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU)) Nos. 1-28, 38, 40, 41, 67 and 70 and a special issue on JB Marks 'Resister: Journal of the Committee of Southern African War Resistance (COSAWR) March 1979-June 1990.

This collection consists of over 4000 unique posters dating mostly from the 1980s-1990s.
Duplicate copies of many of these posters exist. 327 posters from the collection have been
reproduced in the book "Images of Defiance: South African Resistance Posters of the 1980s" by
Ravan Press. A considerable number of posters also feature in the STP publication "Red on
black: The story of the South African poster movement". Some of the posters are also available
in slides (See AL2432) and digital format. The collection includes a large number of posters from
the End Conscription Campaign (ECC), the United Democratic Front (UDF) and also includes
posters relating to women, youth, AIDS, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) as well
Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) struggles.

Almost all the items in this collection are copies of posters utilised in the book "Images of Defiance". The majority of slides in this collection correspond to actual posters included in the SAHA Poster Collection (AL2446).

Sally Sealey came to South Africa in the late 1960s, and got involved in student politics in the early 1980s. During her stay, she came into contact with the residents of Thokoza and adjacent townships. This area was the epicenter of violence in Gauteng, with a recorded 3500 murders in the first three and half years of the 1990s. She worked very closely with Self-Defence Units (SDUs) in the area. So she could speak as a good authority on matters of human rights violations especially in the Thokoza area, having been involved in the daily life of the people there.

With the formation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), she became a member attached to the Johannesburg Regional Office's Investigative Unit. Specifically she adopted a defendants' position, helping some of the suspects to apply for amnesty. She was the main external link in applying for amnesty for suspects who had formerly been members of the SDUs unit in the East Rand. She encouraged and helped the suspects to fill in Amnesty applications.

As a result of her experience, this collection includes unique records regarding the processes and information generated during the proceedings of the TRC.

The collection includes records of the SANCO Civic Organisation itself which varies from Correspondence to Operational files and includes educational programmes and its co-operative organisations. Political Party collaborations are also represented in this collection together with case specific issues such as Electricity and Water provision and so are governmental correspondence and related records. Because of the focus of regional divisions, the regions have been separated accordingly.

This collection consists of discussion and policy papers, memoranda, statements about transformation and crises in tertiary education.

Included in this collection: Summary of the panel discussion "Does Truth have a Gender? A women's perspective of the TRC", Minutes of the Workshop: "Gender and the TRC", Register of workshop participants, Workshop paper by Jessie Duarte, Press release by TRC entitled "Special Hearings on Women", Submission to TRC prepared by Goldblatt and Meintjies, transcript of hearing relating to submission presented by Meintjies, and papers relating to the issue of Gender and the TRC.

Materials collected from TRC Archival Audit.

The TRC Archival Audit

Between 2003 and 2006, SAHA and Historical Papers, University of Witwatersrand embarked on a project to locate, retrieve and make available records relating to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC). The project entailed conducting an archival audit of all existing TRC records in order to identify and locate documentation in danger of being lost.

In the process of conducting the archival audit, SAHA and HP located many collections from individuals and organizations that participated in the TRC process, including this collection. Selections from these materials as well as TRC related material found in the freedom of Information Collection and other pre-existing SAHA and HP collections, were digitized and can be accessed online at http://truth.wwl.wits.ac.za/

A guide to archival resources relating to South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission can also be found at http://www.saha.org.za/pdf/trc_directory.pdf

The materials deposited by Lloyd Ross (series A-C) form the core of the Shifty Records project collection and include Shifty Records organisational material, but largely a wealth of materials relating to the musicians whose music Shifty recorded, such as the digitised audio recordings, artists’ correspondence, lyric sheets, press releases, news clippings and photographs, as well as digitised copies of album releases (covers, inner sleeves and vinyl records). Documents from the Shifty archive (series A) were withdrawn from SAHA by Lloyd Ross in 2020 and lodged with the Africa Open Institute (AOI) for Music in Stellenbosch as part of their Hidden Years Project. All digitised items included here will remain accessible on this site.

Series D contains materials donated by people other than Lloyd Ross:

Michael Drewett donated education material relating to music and censorship; copies of materials relating to the censorship of Shifty Records' Kalahari Surfers release 'Bigger than Jesus' and Mzwakhe Mbuli's 'Change is Pain'.

Copies of materials relating to the SABC's restriction on airplay of music recorded by Shifty Records were obtained from the SABC Record Library and include: Agendas of the SABC Central Record Acceptance Committee (CRAC) meetings; SABC internal correspondence memos; lyric sheets with comments by the SABC CRAC on why a particular song was restricted; faxes from the SABC Record Librarian to Shifty records to inform them of decisions taken by CRAC; and digitised copies of a number of vinyl records with covers and inner sleeves containing the ‘Avoid’ stickers next to song titles and scratched tracks to prevent DJs from playing the songs.

In order to fill the gaps identified in the collection, SAHA has also obtained artefacts from other sources, such as Shifty artists, Shifty workers and Shifty friends.

Series E contains the oral history component of the project and materials include the audio recording and transcripts of interviews with Lloyd Ross, Warrick Sony, Carl Raubenheimer, Brendan Jury, Chris Letcher, Mzwakhe Mbuli, Koos Kombuis, Chris Letcher, Matthew van der Want, Gary Herselman, Simba Morri, Willem Möller, Roger Lucey, and Hannalie Coetzee. The interviews were conducted by Michael Drewett on behalf of the South African History Archive (SAHA) and the Rhodes University Department of Sociology for the Shifty Records Legacy Archive Project in 2013-2014, and transcribed by Victoria Hume.