Project Mayibuye

Dr. Thomas R. KochtanekSchool of Information Science and Learning Technologies

University of Missouri

A brief history underpinning the project

• Racial segregation had existed in South Africa since the days of the Dutch East India Company in the 17th Century and later with British rule in the 18th Century. Capetown was founded as a harbor and a stopping of point for provisions on the way around Cape Horn on the route to and from East India.

• In 1948, the National Party was elected to power. It strengthened the racial segregation begun under Dutch and British colonial rule. Apartheid was instituted shortly thereafter.

• The Nationalist Government classified all peoples into three races and developed rights and limitations for each. The white minority (less than 20%) controlled the vastly larger black majority. The legally institutionalized segregation became known as apartheid.

• While whites enjoyed the highest standard of living in all of Africa, comparable to First World Western nations, the black majority remained disadvantaged by almost every standard, including income, education, housing, and life expectancy. The Freedom Charter, adopted in 1955 by the Congress Alliance, demanded a non-racial society and an end to discrimination.

Brief history (cont’d):

• In 1990 the National Party government took the first step towards dismantling discrimination when it lifted the ban on the African National Congress and other political organizations. It released Nelson Mandela from prison after twenty-seven years' serving a sentence for sabotage. Discriminatory laws began to be repealed or abolished from 1990 onwards after a long and sometimes violent struggle by the African National Congress and other anti-apartheid activists.

• South Africa held its first universal elections in 1994, which the ANC won by an overwhelming majority. It has been in power ever since. In 1994 Nelson Mandela was elected President.

University connections

In 1986, the Board of Curators of the University of Missouri authorized the establishment the University of Missouri South African Education Program (UMSAEP), an educational initiative to aid South Africans disadvantaged by their government’s apartheid policies. The UMSAEP committee is led by a director and includes three members from each of the four UM campuses. In April 1986, the UMSAEP committee reached out to the University of the Western Cape (UWC) to explore the possibility of cooperation. In June 1986, a formal memorandum of academic cooperation was signed by UM President C. Peter Magrath and UWC Rector Jakes Gerwel. UWC had been established under apartheid in 1960 as a university for so-called "colored" students. Under the apartheid regime, any mixed race person was deemed to be “colored.” This agreement, therefore, had the distinction of being the first ever signed between a non-white South African university and a U.S. university.

Enter Rod Uphoff

Rodney J. UphoffElwood Thomas Missouri EndowedProfessor of Law and Director,University of Missouri South AfricanEducation ProgramUniversity of MissouriSchool of Law

Project Mayibuye Beginnings

In early 2013 several representatives from the University of Missouri travelled to the University of Western Cape in Capetown, South Africa and toured the Mayibuye Archives and their holdings. Members of that delegation included Jim Cogswell, the Director of University Libraries at Mizzou along with representatives from the College of Education. A conversation began regarding the opportunity to digitize and provide access to the collections held by the archives to a wider audience. In March of 2013 Mike Pullis and Jim Cogswell contacted Thomas Kochtanek and encouraged him to travel to Capetown, SA to investigate the opportunity. In June of 2013 Kochtanek and Anselm Huelsbergen travelled to Capetown with Rod Uphoff, and was treated to a tour of the holdings, including materials from the Robben Island Museum, which were spread out over several buildings. The collections included an array of documents, photographs and materials related to the anti-apartheid movement from the 1950s on forward.

On December 3, 2013 a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between three parties that

established Project Mayibuye as a collaboration between the three institutions.

The MOU established three persons as point persons for the project, now named Project Mayibuye:

• Ms. Pateka P. Ntschuntshe – Matshaya• Director Library Services at the University of Western Cape

• Mariki Victor• Manager – Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archive• at the University of Western Cape

• Dr. Thomas Kochtanek• School of Information Science and Learning Technologies• University of Missouri

Entrance to Mayibuye Archive

Summer Program July 2014

In July 2014 a group of MLS students travelled to Capetown to participate in the International Program put together by Dr. Jenny Bossaller of SISLT and the College of Education. One of their projects was to organize a set of materials from the collection and create a finding tool representing that collection. In doing this the team looked at a range of materials held within the archives.

Project Overview

The University of the Western Cape (UWC), the University of Missouri (MU) and the Robben Island Museum (RIM) are partnering to seek funds to dramatically enhance access to the Mayibuye Archives, a vast multi-media collection of photos, posters, videos, letters, and documents that are largely accessible now only to those who visit UWC’s campus. This rich collection documents the campaign both in South Africa and around the world to bring down the apartheid regime. The Mayibuye Project seeks to make that struggle come alive for generations to come by creating an interactive digital resource that includes interactive tools and lesson plans that will make this vital history accessible to millions around the world.

Project Goals – Expanding Acess

The aim of the project is to make this largely untapped resource more readily available to the people of South Africa and to the world. By doing so, more people will be inspired by the amazing story this collection vividly tells: of the struggle from the dark days of oppression and apartheid to the development of a new constitution and the birth of a new democracy. The Mayibuye Archives needs to be properly preserved as well as shared so that people around the world may learn about the extraordinary leaders and the sacrifices they made to create this democracy. The specific goals of this project are to:

• Develop an interactive digital environment for people from diverse backgrounds and cultures including students, teachers, researchers and the general public.

• Increase understanding of the history of apartheid and the struggle for independence and democracy in South Africa and the lessons learned from it.

• Expand access to the archival material that captures the struggle for national liberation in South Africa through state-of-the-art technological and teaching tools.

Impact of this Project

Project Mayibuye will make historical papers, photographs, sound and oral history, film and video, as well as numerous art and artifact collections more readily available, to help the world understand the struggle for freedom from apartheid and the birth of a democratic nation. By making the Mayibuye Archive Collections engaging and widely available, we will share a history that should never be forgotten.

Research Opportunities

There are a number of opportunities for research based on connecting to the primary source documents that have been and continue to be converted to digital formats that will be made accessible to the broader publics. The Mayibuye Archives include a variety of materials, such as documents, handbooks, book chapters, books, magazines, and ephemera. Marxist, Communist, and anti-apartheid conference materials are scattered throughout the collection, most dating from the 1980’s and ‘90’s. There are numerous individual items within the collection that will be of interest to researchers. Some of the items that we found to be very poignant were announcements of political prisoners’ releases, a handbook on the treatment of Bantu servants, pass books and papers allowing a person to visit prisoners or off-limit areas, etc. Some of these are part of a larger collection, but some seem to have been donated by themselves, so the researcher will have to browse the catalog to find them.

Research (cont’d):

While there are many interesting individual items in the collection that will be of interest to researchers, listed below are some of the larger collections: Content of MCH Drawer A:

• Materials on Ben Bartman• Correspondence between DeKlerk and Mandela during negotiations (copies)• Newspaper articles by Ruth First, anti-apartheid activist and scholar who worked in exile from

Mozambique. Ruth was killed by a parcel bomb addressed to her while in exile.• Newspaper clippings related to the Rivonia trial, including children’s protests. The Rivonia Trial took

place in 1963-64, and ten leaders of the ANC were convicted of political crimes.• Newspaper articles about house arrests following the Suppression of Communism Act• Collections dealing with rugby associations (including Coloured and Bantu leagues)• Collection about ANC camps and schools set up in Tanzania during exile

Research (cont’d):

MCH Drawer B:• Maps, prison escape routes, and diagrams about how to make keys to escape from prison from the

Pretoria Prison• Newspaper collection about Steve Biko, anti-apartheid activist and author who founded the Black

Consciousness Movement.• Collection of Xhosa-language materials, including songs and poems, and a collection about the National

Anthem in Xhosa and its author• Booklets and informational bulletins about the South African Congress of Trade Unions• Bulletins and booklets about the New Unity Movement• Anti-apartheid movement materials from Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, England, and Germany• Speeches and addresses of Nelson Mandela• Football collection from Robben Island, including insignias• History of the Umkhonto we Sizwe (the MK), the armed wing of the ANC, which was co-founded by

Nelson Mandela after the Sharpville massacre.

Education

The plan is to develop an interactive digital environment that is so compelling that end users will want to connect up and visit often. By connecting scholars, teachers, students, and the general public, we hope to build a compelling website that allows end users of all kinds to connect and interact with both content and other persons looking for information related to the struggle for national liberation. SISLT and the College of Education at the University of Missouri is uniquely positioned to contribute it’s expertise related to the development of lesson plans and interactive games, along with expertise in web design, development and assessment. Plans are to connect educators and students from all over the world to expand their awareness of these past events and the efforts to establish democracy in South Africa.

Collaboration

The University of the Western Cape (UWC), the University of Missouri (MU) and the Robben Island Museum (RIM) are collaborating in the efforts to make this rich set of collections accessible to all who seek to better understand the struggle for freedom from apartheid and the people who supported this effort. This collaboration combines talents related to content, content representation, and design that will build upon each other to provide widespread access to those documents, photographs, posters, letters and videos that are representative of that era.

Preservation and Access

The richness of its collections, the historical value of its documents, the significance of the stories they contain and the questions they ask, all these aspects of the holdings of the Mayibuye Archives place a high premium on access by researchers from all over the world. To satisfy such demands for its collections, the Mayibuye Archives seeks to expand the availability of its holdings through digitization and the internet. The Archives’ professional staff will collaborate with the College of Education and the Libraries at the University of Missouri to develop a suitable way to manage the Archives’ growing digitized materials, maintain them in a standards-based, preservation environment, and offer digital artifacts from and information about its collections to researchers the world over.

Advisory Board members

• Anselm Huelsbergen, University Archivist• Jim Cogswell, Director of University Libraries• Elizabeth Cogswell -- Sr. Director for Advancement • Rod Uphoff -- Director, University of Missouri South African Education Program• Mike Pullis – Associate Dean -- College of Education• Gwen Robbins – Director of Advancement -- College of Education• Neeley Current – Allen Institute• Tom Kochtanek – SISLT – College of Education

Next Steps:

• Establish a common server space to transfer the existing materials across to a new operating environment• Begin to identify specific collections that might be included first• Create a photo database and consider crowd sourcing those photos• Engage teachers and students to create games and interactive

environments based on the primary source content• Establish a “business plan” for long term support of the project• Seek partners in funding the start up efforts