The silencing of black intellectuals in apartheid South Africa: an historical study drawing from the lives and experiences of Es’kia Mphahlele, Archie Mafeje and Bernard Magubane.

Abstract

Through studying the lives and experiences of Es’kia Mphahlele, Archie Mafeje, and Bernard Magubane, this thesis seeks to bring to light the silencing of black intellectuals in apartheid South Africa. Drawing from the lens of Social History and Small-Scale Histories: Biography, Microhistory, and Autobiography, this study focuses on the early lives of Es’kia Mphahlele, Archie Mafeje, and Bernard Magubane, including their educational backgrounds, and examines the conditions that these intellectuals faced growing up in apartheid South Africa, which influenced their perspectives and ideas. This study also examines the writings and ideas of these black intellectuals who critiqued apartheid and the contributions they made to the country’s liberation struggle while living in South Africa. It also focuses on how the apartheid state tried to suppress their ideas and silence them. It further focuses on their decisions to go into exile and the lives of these black intellectuals in exile. Moreover, it considers the focus of their writings during their period living outside South Africa. This thesis also considers the post-apartheid period and these black intellectuals’ lives and experiences in South Africa from the 1990s. In addition, it examines their lives and work after their return, up to the point of their deaths. Finally, this study reflects on the intellectual legacies of these three intellectuals.