HIST422, Winter 2022

Module 1: Motivations and Expectations

Please write down three words that you associate with the word “incarceration”:

Prison
Anguish
Punishment

In the past, what have you learned about South Africa’s history?

I have a general grasp of the events that led up to Apartheid, such as the two Boer Wars fought
by colonizing European Powers (Primarily the English and the Dutch), and how even when
South Africa was granted independence, the majority population of Black Africans were
subjected to similar if not worse social, economic, and physical segregation as Black
Americans prior to the Civil Rights Act. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu were both
leaders of the anti-Apartheid movement, and Mandela was imprisoned for around two decades
before Apartheid was put to an end, and he was elected as South Africa’s first black president.

What do you hope to learn in this course?

I would like to learn in more detail the events that led to the implementation of Apartheid in
South Africa, as well as the strategies and actions used by the anti-Apartheid movement to
finally put an end to the policy. I’d also be interested in learning about how Apartheid still
affects relations between Black and White South Africans today, and whether the practice has
irreparably damaged how the two groups feel about one another. Finally, I think it would be
important to dissect how the rest of the world reacted to Apartheid, and what people outside of
South Africa did or did not do about it.