Podcast
The Story of South Africa: Empire, Apartheid, and Transformation — Fexingo History
Episodes — page 5
Gandhi in South Africa The Making of a MahatmaBefore he led India to independence, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi spent 21 years in South Africa. This episode traces his transformation from a young lawyer in Durban to the leader o…
- The Soweto Uprising: Students Against Apartheid, 1976
In June 1976, thousands of black schoolchildren in Soweto took to the streets to protest the imposition of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction. The peaceful march turned into a…
- The Great Trek: Voortrekkers, Dingane, and the Battle of Blood River
In this episode of The Story of South Africa, Lucas and Luna explore the Great Trek—the mass migration of Dutch-speaking settlers out of the Cape Colony in the 1830s—and the violen…
- Boer War Concentration Camps: Emily Hobhouse's Exposure
In 1901, British forces in South Africa adopted a scorched-earth policy, destroying Boer farms and herding families into concentration camps. Conditions were appalling: overcrowdin…
- Shaka Zulu and the Mfecane: Cataclysm in Southern Africa
In this episode, we journey back to the early 19th century to explore the Mfecane — the crushing — a period of upheaval that reshaped Southern Africa. At its center is Shaka kaSenz…
- South Africa 1936 The End of the Cape Black Vote
In 1936, the South African government under Prime Minister J.B.M. Hertzog passed the Representation of Natives Act, effectively ending the Cape's historic non-racial qualified fran…
- The Xhosa Cattle-Killing: Nongqawuse and the Great Delusion
In 1856, a teenage Xhosa girl named Nongqawuse ignited a prophecy that led her people to destroy their own cattle and crops, hoping to drive the British from their lands. The resul…
- 1914 SANNC Delegation to Britain: Protesting the Land Act
In 1914, less than a year after the devastating Natives Land Act, the newly formed South African Native National Congress (SANNC) sent a delegation to London to petition the Britis…
- South Africa 1956 Women's March Against Pass Laws
On August 9, 1956, 20,000 women from all racial backgrounds marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest the extension of pass laws to women. Organized by the Federation o…
- The 1948 Election That Brought Apartheid to Power
In 1948, South Africa held a general election that reshaped its future. Against expectations, D.F. Malan's National Party defeated Jan Smuts's United Party on a platform of aparthe…
- The Freedom Charter South Africa's Vision for a Non-Racial Future
In June 1955, thousands of South Africans of all races gathered in a dusty field in Kliptown, Johannesburg, to adopt a document that would become the moral compass of the anti-apar…
- South Africa 1966: The Rise of John Vorster and Apartheid's Iron Fist
In 1966, South Africa saw the assassination of Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd and the rise of John Vorster, a former Nazi sympathizer who would intensify apartheid's security appa…
- The 1946 African Mine Workers' Strike and the Birth of Mass Resistance
In August 1946, 100,000 black mine workers on the Witwatersrand gold fields walked off the job, demanding higher wages and the right to form unions. The strike was brutally suppres…
- The 1913 Natives Land Act and the Making of South Africa
In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the devastating impact of South Africa's 1913 Natives Land Act, which confined the African majority to just 7% of the land. They trace the a…
- South Africa 1950s The Sophiatown Removal and the Destruction of a Community
In the 1950s, the apartheid government declared Sophiatown, a vibrant, multiracial suburb of Johannesburg, a 'black spot' and slated it for destruction. Over 60,000 residents were…
- South Africa 1877: The Sekhukhune War and Pedi Resistance
In 1877, the British Empire clashed with the Pedi kingdom under King Sekhukhune in what became known as the Sekhukhune War. This episode unpacks the causes, key battles, and afterm…
- The 1947 Fagan Commission: Apartheid's Fork in the Road
In 1947, as South Africa stood at a crossroads between segregation and the draconian system soon to be known as apartheid, a government-appointed commission delivered a surprising…
- Nelson Mandela's Rivonia Trial Speech: The Speech That Shook Apartheid
In 1964, Nelson Mandela stood in the Pretoria Supreme Court and delivered a four-hour speech that would become one of the defining moments of the anti-apartheid struggle. This epis…
- Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement
In this episode, Lucas and Luna delve into the life and philosophy of Steve Biko, a pivotal figure in South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle. They explore the rise of the Black Con…
- South Africa 1914: The Birth of the Afrikaner Rebellion
In 1914, as the world plunged into the Great War, a different war erupted in South Africa. Afrikaner nationalists, bitter about the recent Anglo-Boer War, rose up against the Union…
