A widening of scale: The traditional Fort Hare fades away

The onset of university apartheid, the arrival of J.M. de Wet, and the granting of autonomy stamped out any lingering remnants of the traditional Fort Hare. Barney Pityana makes frequent mention of this ‘traditional’ or ‘historic’ Fort Hare. This institution, from the 1930s, produced a spirit of fraternity and resistance among its students that reached a crescendo with the protests against the introduction of university apartheid. By 1973, the Fort Hare that Pityana speaks of – that of the Mbekis, Mdlaloses and Govenders – was a relic of the past. Indeed, as the protest surrounding the introduction of university apartheid died down, the third-rate system of black higher education was expanding, and Fort Hare, thrust into this environment, no longer occupied the unique place in the South African landscape that it had in earlier years. The centre of gravity had shifted, and though political activity at Fort Hare lived on, the situation at the university more closely reflected that of the rest of the country.

Events at Fort Hare in the late 1960s and early 1970s take on greater meaning when viewed in the context of this fading Fort Hare tradition. Protest at the university before and immediately after the takeover was aimed at preserving Fort Hare's distinctive culture of resistance. It failed. Yet student political activity at Fort Hare did not stop after 1960. In the new situation, opposition to government policy continued, but as part of a wider movement. As the NP consolidated its vision of black university education and seemingly stifled the student resistance that it viewed in large part as a product of the old Fort Hare, a new stream of activism emerged.

Indeed, the expropriation of Fort Hare failed to produce the docile and isolated group of students desired by the government. Although the segregated black university colleges sought to curb political activism, they spawned the experiences and created the conditions for black consciousness to develop. With black students growing increasingly disillusioned with the whitedominated NUSAS, the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) was founded at a conference at Turfloop in July 1969.