"Honorary White": A Visit to South Africa

Front Cover
Bodley Head, 1975 - Social Science - 159 pages
Acclaimed author E. R. Braithwaite ("To Sir, With Love") chronicles the brutality, oppression, and courage he witnessed as a black man granted Honorary White status during a six-week visit to apartheid South Africa
As a black man living in a white-dominated world, author E. R. Braithwaite was painfully aware of the multitude of injustices suffered by people of color and he wrote powerfully and poignantly about racial discrimination in his acclaimed novels and nonfiction works. So it came as a complete surprise when, in 1973, the longstanding ban on his books was lifted by the South African government, a ruling body of minority whites that brutally oppressed the black majority through apartheid laws. Applying for a visa and secretly hoping to be refused he was granted the official status of Honorary White for the length of his stay. As such, Braithwaite would be afforded some of the freedoms that South Africa s black population was denied, yet would nonetheless be considered inferior by the white establishment.
With "Honorary White," Braithwaite bears witness to a dark and troubling time, relating with grave honesty and power the shocking abuses, inequities, and horrors he observed and experienced firsthand during his six-week stay in a criminal nation. His book is a personal testament to the savagery of apartheid and to the courage of those who refused to be broken by it."

From inside the book

Contents

Section 1
35
Section 2
75
Section 3
107
Copyright

2 other sections not shown

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (1975)

Eustace Edward Ricardo Braithwaite was born in Georgetown, British Guiana on June 27, 1912. He studied at Queen's College, Guyana and at the City College of New York. He moved to Britain after working at an oil refinery in Aruba. In 1940, he volunteered for service in the Royal Air Force. In 1949, he received a master's degree in physics from Cambridge University. From 1960 to 1963, he was a human-rights officer at the World Veterans Federation and from 1963 to 1966, he was a lecturer and education consultant at Unesco. From 1967 to 1969, he served as the first permanent representative of Guyana to the United Nations. He was later Guyana's ambassador to Venezuela. He taught at several universities including Howard University, New York University, and Florida State University. He wrote several books during his lifetime including Paid Servant, A Kind of Homecoming, Choice of Straws, Reluctant Neighbors, and Honorary White: A Visit to South Africa. To Sir, With Love, a memoir of teaching in London's deprived East End, was adapted into a film starring Sidney Poitier in 1967. He died on December 12, 2016 at the age of 104.

Bibliographic information