Pass

In Johannesburg anyone who carried a pass would have had to visit the hated pass law office at 80 Albert Street. Here naked men would have to wait in queues for a medical examination before their passes would be endorsed. Part of this fitness examination was a public inspection of the penis.

here, go to the café here next door and you meet up with a … inspector, and then the only thing he is going to say, ‘jong kom hier waar’s jou pass?’ [Where’s your pass?] No, I’ve left it here at work or here at home. ‘Kom, kom, kom.’ [Come, come, come] Then they take you to the ...

When they see, even at a bus stop, when they see black people in a queue, they quickly surround them; arrest them, those who have got no passes. Everywhere! Even going to church, on Sunday, going to church, they stop them from going to church. They ask your pass. If you leave your pass you are ...

In Johannesburg anyone who carried a pass would have had to visit the hated pass law office at 80 Albert Street. Here naked men would have to wait in queues for a medical examination before their passes would be endorsed. Part of this fitness examination was a public inspection of the penis.

became ‘Coloured’. In the Karoo they called this ‘om jou baadjie om te draai,’ to turn your jacket inside out. There were many advantages to pass as a Coloured. Coloured people did not have to carry pass books and there were more jobs available. Coloureds were better paid and their schools ...

When they see, even at a bus stop, when they see black people in a queue, they quickly surround them; arrest them, those who have got no passes. Everywhere! Even going to church, on Sunday, going to church, they stop them from going to church. They ask your pass. If you leave your pass you are ...

The beauty of the Karoo’s wide open spaces belies a cruel apartheid past in which black people were made to survive by passing themselves off as Coloureds. During the apartheid years the Karoo became by law an official Coloured area. For black people it became a hostile place to live and work. // ...

... because of the colour of their skin, and the language they were talking. // In certain places you could not find work because you carried a pass book. You had to first go to the magistrate to get a pass to go into certain towns if you were a Black person. Whereas the coloured could go ...

... say Hey! You mustn’t say I’m your child. I’m a child of South Africa. I’m a child of South Africa, not yours, because I am fighting for the pass ...

... I did the job very well, I found it very interesting in that there were all sorts of strange messages which people were leaving that I was asked to pass on to other people and it was fairly clear to me therefore that this was an unusual military unit with unusual significance. ...

... policemen. // Your callousness, your coldness and insensitivity shows us the kind of leaders that the South African government chose. // No compassion. // We have a fascinating piece on black people from the Karoo who have spent many years trying to pass as coloureds and now want their old ...

the last fifteen years and worked for one employer for ten years, or be 15 years in the area. // So the number of people who could qualify to have a pass that entitled them to be in the urban areas were limited, very strictly ...

... on the ground. I could see her eyes staring. I couldn’t tell whether she was dead already. I rushed to our home which was burning. As I tried to pass the soldiers, they said I should stand back. Nobody was allowed in, because those people were there and they would kill me. I said I did not ...

In fact you are not the only one who killed there are others, it’s still going on. Right now if you go down the road you’re not sure if you’ll pass safely. All we want is peace and to live ...

... how was I going to live with myself with it?’ So that even during basics I was starting to collect information which I thought I might be able to pass on to someone at a later ...

And when I started working outside and I saw how the men were being caught for Pass books, how black men struggled I decided to play Coloured to be able to live.

... on the amnesty applications of the three policemen involved with the killing of the Gugulethu Seven. We look at the history and effects of the pass laws and the hostel system and we look at truth commissions elsewhere in the world. We also bring you a special documentary on the notorious ...

... those questions. We also bring you a short documentary on the black people of the Karoo who have pretended for decades to be coloured to escape the pass laws and now want their African heritage back. But we start with the dramatic day in George in the Southern Cape. ...

the late 1700s the white settlers in South Africa forced slaves to carry identity books so they could control their movement. In some way or another pass books had existed since then, but when the National Party came to power in 1948 and formalized the ideology of apartheid they needed more ...

I just remember shaking. I don’t think I actually felt anything, I don’t think you did either. It wasn’t a time to feel things. I just remember sitting there shaking really and just letting the time pass.