Resonances of Youth and Tensions of Race: Liberal Student Politics, White Radicals and Black Consciousness, 1968–1973

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between white liberal students and black students in the Black Consciousness-aligned South African Students' Organisation (SASO). It explores the often fraught personal relationships between young leaders, but also points out their commonalities: a search for ideas, resonances they felt with international struggles for justice, and the unique and distinctive history that characterised South Africa at this period. In South Africa in the early 1970s activists elaborated the radical ideas of the 1960s and as international movements for social justice lost their momentum in other countries, opposition to state power resurfaced in South Africa. The paper points to the personal transformations in white student leaders as they sought to accommodate the Black Consciousness challenge and respond in constructive ways. It also points to the regional histories of radicalism, focusing first on the Cape, secondly the Northern Transvaal and finally Durban.