I like the way Ross isn't afraid to consider himself as part of the text and a member of the community he writes as a historian/activist tamed in a scholarly text to translate a subaltern experience to us lay folk.
Somehow it works
The Coloured community of South Africa came into being after, when the Dutch and, later, the British seeped into southern Africas arid west, forming an uneasy alliance with the indigenous people.
In the first unions between settlers and indigenous peoples, the Coloured people of the Cape flicker to life.
Fastforward to, the Union of South Africa, which sees the Coloured people lose what little parliamentary representation they had under the British.
In Our Own Skins is the extraordinary record of the Coloured community and itsyear battle to regain the franchise, told through the eyes of uncompromising insider Richard van der Ross.
From the Stone meetings, conducted from a boulder on a windswept District Six hillside, to a petition carried, torchlike, to faraway London in, it maps a trajectory of loss and of restoration.
Its rich cast among others, the Glasgoweducated Dr Abdullah Abdurahman, his fiery daughter Cissie Gool, the Ghanaian FZS Peregrino, Jimmy and Alex la Guma and Labour Party stalwart Allan Hendrickse plays a leading role in pulling the Coloured people through the postcolonial morass that is South Africa up toand beyond and proudly placing them, fully represented, in the Cabinet of Nelson Mandela.
a Freeman of the City of Cape Town.
Van der Ross initially trained as a teacher at the University of Cape Town, then completed a BA degree through the University of South Africa in.
Inand, he completed his MA in Philosophy and BEd at the University of Cape Town, He was the first black vice chancellor of the University of the Western Cape, He was also the first coloured person in South Africa to receive a doctorate in philosophy, which he achieved at the University of Cape Town.
See also works published as sitelink Dick van der RossProfessor Richard van der Ross, also known as Dicky or Dickie, was an author, teacher, anti apartheid activist, and a Freeman of the City of Cape Town.
Van der Ross initially trained as a teacher at the University of Cape Town, then completed a BA degree through the University of South Africa in.
Inand, he completed his MA in Philosophy and BEd at the University of Cape Town, He was the first black vice chancellor of the University of the Western Cape, He was also the first coloured person in South Africa to receive a doctorate in philosophy, which he achieved at the University of Cape Town.
sitelink.