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 ...

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 ...

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.

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 ...

... 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 ...

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. // ...

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 ...

But there’s no way in which you could have lived through the last 40 years of apartheid and not know of the pass laws and not know of forced removals and not know of race classification and not know of group areas and also not know of what that did to communities and to individuals’ lives.

We are aware too of the anguish through which you have had to pass over so many years and in a way, although we’re still going to hear your testimony, it is wonderful that you had been vindicated.

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 ...

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.

... 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 ...

... 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. ...

... 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 ...

Botswana was never a training area. Most of the training was done in Angola and in Zambia. Botswana was a conduit I would say where people when they passed, coming from Zambia, from Zambia they’d pass through Botswana but without the Botswana government’s knowledge. We had to do this, we had no ...

... themselves coloured. In the Karoo they called this ‘om jou baadjie om te draai,’ to turn your jacket inside out. There were many advantages to passing as coloured. coloured people did not have to carry pass books and there were more jobs available. But with freedom comes dignity. Many of the ...

... and they stopped there and one of them just come out, climb on top of the car and use a torch to light us. And, in few seconds I saw one of them passing through the car lights and after few seconds he came out. They were all having guns, all of them. And they were shooting to us. And, we were ...

... 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 ...