Jean Pease, a black school teacher and anti-apartheid activist, was one of sixty women I interviewed in 1987 for a study of the contribution of women to the South African liberation movement. Although she was engaged in political work that was both nonviolent and legal, she was one of the thousands of activists who was detained during the 1985 state of emergency. Her story, the focus of this article, provides a vivid picture of one woman's experience of eight weeks detention in a South African prison. She also describes how she became politicized, her experience of teaching in the racist educational system at a time of great student activism and turmoil, the difficulties of being a politically active mother, and her ideas about the significance of sexism in contemporary South Africa.