Mother: Connections To Apartheid And American Civil Rights Movement

Mother to Mother: Connections to Apartheid and American Civil Rights Movement Mother to Mother is a book that focuses on the lives and relationship of two mothers who live an ocean apart, in entirely different cultures. However, the book shows a much greater relationship that is much less talked about in the book: that between Amy Biehl, the American student who was visiting South Africa to encourage voting, and her killer, Mxolisi.
The comparison between young people from the United States and South Africa during this time illustrates a much better picture of the Apartheid than the relationship between two mothers can. By understanding the similarities and differences of Apartheid in South Africa and the civil rights movement in America,
one can better read and understand the book Mother to Mother. The Apartheid was an official racial segregation policy in South Africa, put in place by the Afrikaner Nationalist Party in 1948 . Before this policy, there was great separation between races, but making this policy law increased racial tension between whites and non-whites . In the 1960s Apartheid was applied with increased force despite pressure from the United Nations and other international organizations to lighten the regulations .
Rather than reducing or repealing some of the laws, they began to enforce them much harder and part ways with organizations and countries that didn’t agree with South Africa’s Apartheid system . By the 1990s, and ultimately into 1994, the Apartheid policies had toned down, mostly eliminating some of the lesser laws such as interracial marriage segregation. Mother to Mother takes place in 1994 surrounding the first democrat elections in South Africa. The civil rights movement in America and the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa have many strikingly similar qualities. Both movements fought government policies as well as social racism. The protesters from both countries fought for replacement of policies such as segregation in schools and Apartheid as well as equality in the eyes of their government and fellow citizens . Both movements also had a large contingency of youth involved. One can also compare the leadership qualities and lives of Nelson Mandela of South Africa and Martin Luther King, Jr., leader of the American civil rights
movement. Students and youth were heavily involved in the movement against the Apartheid, commonly called the Anti-Apartheid Movement. This movement also took place around the same time as the American civil rights movement, so students from both countries gathered mutual support. Because of this, we see American student Amy Biehl come to South Africa to help South Africans prepare for their first democratic elections in the history of their country. Because America had passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, it was a few years ahead of South Africa in terms of racial equality. Because of this, America was a big supporter of the South African anti-Apartheid movement, which caused many students, such as Amy Biehl, to come to South Africa when it held its first democratic election. Also, the United States’ civil rights movement was a gigantic inspiration for the protesters of the Apartheid.
Another inspiration for the anti-Apartheid movement was the
Sharpeville Massacre, where South African police killed 69 peaceful protesters . This not only inspired protesters in South Africa but civil rights activists in the United States as well. Throughout all of the unrest in South Africa, African Americans and native South Africans shared a close bond. The Sharpeville Massacre was a great influence on Americans. However, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela were very important leaders in both of their respective countries and civil rights movements. Nelson Mandela was an extremely inspirational leader for South Africans. Mandela was arrested multiple times in 1962 and 1963, released shortly after his arrest each time . In 1964, however, he was arrested by the South African government for making anti-Apartheid statements and sentenced to 27 years in prison . He was released from prison in 1990, and with his release gave American and South African revolutionary leaders a new sense of
motivation. Martin Luther King, Jr. also went to jail in the name of his cause and become a martyr for his supporters. On April 12, 1963 he was arrested at a protest in Birmingham, Alabama, one of the most segregated states in America, along with Ralph Abernathy and Fred Shuttlesworth . King and his supporters had been nonviolently protesting segregated Birmingham businesses without any progress, so they decided to ignore a city ordinance and organize publicly without a licensed permit . King was thrown in solitary confinement and not given a lawyer or any form of defense. The day after his arrest, a friend of King’s smuggled in a letter written by many different Christian pastors and Jewish priests, lecturing King for his actions and encouraging him to hold back .
However, King did not sit back and do nothing, instead writing a 7,000-word letter back to the religious leaders explaining his actions and why they had to be done in order to create change. Like Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Martin Luther King, Jr. did not back down in the face of suffering or misfortune, instead using the arrests as a form of standing up to racism and segregation. Both leaders were absolutely essential to their movements, motivating youth such as Amy Biehl to travel to South Africa to assist in the new elections, and unfortunately, students such as Mxolisi to respond to this assistance with unnecessary violence that Nelson Mandela would have never advocated for.
Without making comparisons between the anti-Apartheid and civil rights movements in South Africa and the United States of America, we cannot learn as much about either movement as we should. If not for leaders like Mandela and King, and youthful protesters willing to devote their lives to saving the futures of their peers, neither of these anti-racism movements could have possibly taken place.
The book Mother to Mother shows a clear, personal image of what it was like to live in South Africa during the end of Apartheid. It conveys a message of the hardships that protesters and families of the protesters went through in order to gain equality in a place where it was natural to be treated subhuman by “superior races.” The lives of Mxolisi and Amy and the tragic killing of Amy show the difficult times that students from both cultures went through for equality, without knowing that at times they were hurting one of their own.