Welcoming the regime

Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri remembers waking up on the morning of 23 October 1959 to find

Having lost the battle to keep their school free from government interference, the energies of Fort Hare students would shift towards expressing their dissatisfaction with the new, apartheid-appointed regime that ran the university. And, on the occasion of a campus visit by the newly appointed government rector, Johannes Jurgens Ross, the new registrar, H.G. du Preez, and the head of UNISA, Professor S. Pauw, the students offered a preview of what was to come. When the three came to address the students, they were greeted with banners bearing the slogans, ‘We don't want fascists here’, ‘Leave Fort Hare alone – away with indoctrination’ and ‘Ross verwag mofilkheid’ (Ross expect trouble).

The attacks on the new administrators did not stop with words. Professor Pauw's car was vandalised and students pelted Du Preez with eggs and tomatoes. Herby Govinden, a young lecturer at the time, says: ‘We gave them a pretty rough time. So they got a taste of what they were coming into.’ G.S. Tootla says: ‘Oh God! … Du Preez got a hiding from us. He was messed up from head to toe.’ Williams cites Professor O.F. Raum's account of events, saying that certain staff members who staunchly opposed the bills took delight in the protest, ‘milling around with the students … enjoying themselves immensely’.

The1960s brought unprecedented conflict at Fort Hare. In an era when opposition to apartheid was generally muted throughout the country after the Sharpeville massacre, protest against the authorities at Fort Hare served to politicise what would otherwise have been a silenced student body.