By ALICE WAIRIMU NDERITU

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In July last year, I wrote about the documentary The State Against Mandela and the Others on those tried with Nelson Mandela, based on the recovered sound archives of the historic Rivonia trial in 1963 and 1964.

At the time, I noted how racially mixed those on trial were. Lionel Bernstein, Denis Goldberg, Arthur Goldreich, Bob Hepple, Harold Wolpe and his brother-in-law James Kantor were white.

Ahmed Kathrada was Indian, while Nelson Mandela, Elias Motsoaledi, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba and Andrew Mlangeni were black with Walter Sisulu who had an English father and a Xhosa mother classified as coloured.
They have been leaving us, one by one. Hero of the anti-apartheid struggle Denis Goldberg, the only Rivonia defendant white man jailed for life, is the latest to die, at the age of 87. Goldberg spent 22 years in prison.

During his trial, he said if black people were free from oppression, everyone else would be free too.

Around the world, there is a history of white people who protested against racism in general and black oppression in particular.

Another Denis, this time from Britain, for whom Denis Pritt road is named after in Nairobi, was the lawyer leading the team defending Kenya’s Kapenguria six team of Jomo Kenyatta, Bildad Kaggia, Kung’u wa Karumba, Fred Kubai, Paul Ngei and Achieng Oneko accused of Mau Mau links in 1952.
Denis Pritt also defended Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere who had been charged with criminal libel based on a 1958 editorial he wrote in the Tanganyika African Union (TANU) newsletter Sauti ya TANU.

Nyerere and Kenyatta would later become presidents. Denis Pritt was known for defending for free, anybody he felt was victimised by authorities.

Why is it so difficult to remember white people who fought against black oppression yet the names of racists like the apartheid leaders, dead and living are so easily recalled?

Civil rights
Have you ever heard of Viola Liuzzo, James Reeb or Michael Schwerner?

Viola was a white housewife who worked with the American Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King for the rights of black people. She was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan.

One of the four Klansmen in the car from which she was shot at later testified against her killers.

James Reeb, a white pastor was badly beaten up by white segregationists during the Selma to Montgomery marches. Reeb practiced his faith through action, living in poor neighborhoods designated for black people.

Reeb died from his injuries and to date, nobody has been convicted for his death. Michael Schwerner was killed by the Ku Klux Klan. He worked for the Congress of Racial Equality an African American civil rights organisation registering African Americans to vote, with his wife Rita.

Schwerner organised black people to boycott a shop that would not hire them under the rallying call “don’t shop where you can’t work”.

Schwerner was also known for his door-to-door campaigns, seeking out white people to support the civil rights cause. Their stories are documented in the powerful documentary Eyes on the Prize, about the Civil Rights Movement in the US.

Anti-apartheid hero Goldberg grew up facing anti-semitic bullying attacks and related the connection between the racism in South Africa and that of the Nazis in Europe.

He had a deep understanding of racism and therefore an appreciation of what oppressed people endured.

Racial identity

The power of the Rivonia trial lay not just in knowing they were unjustly accused, but also in their representation of people who had worked through their racial identity process and created strong mutually respectful relationships.

Clearly, they did not feel that their interracial relationship was a betrayal of their people and themselves. If they had they would otherwise have been doomed to fail as freedom fighters.

With Goldberg gone, the only remaining survivor is Andrew Mlangeni.

Mlangeni, saying his heart was sore from the loss, has lamented Goldberg dying during this Covid-19 crisis which prohibits mass gatherings including at funerals.

The coronavirus pandemic has forced many to lean towards a new concept of inward-looking self-segregated identity, where safety is guaranteed by the lesser number of people interacted with.

If we shall have a world in which interracial relations make meaning, then we need to invest in having dialogues on spaces such as social media, on what will sustain old relations, open doors to new communities and create space for authentic connections with people of all races.

An open and unprejudiced tolerance of other cultures is of course extremely important.

The Rivonia team demonstrated the power of an interracial team built on trust to lead genuine social change. Shujaa Hamba Kahle. Hero, Go well, Denis Goldberg.

Alice Wairimu Nderitu is the author of Beyond Ethnicism, Mukami Kimathi, Mau Mau Freedom Fighter and Kenya: Bridging Ethnic Divides. Email [email protected]