312: From Music to Madiba: A History of U.S. Relations with South Africa

BackStory

History, Education

4.7 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2020

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Thirty years ago this week, Nelson Mandela, the renowned civil rights and anti-apartheid leader, was released from prison. His release marked the beginning of the end of South Africa’s brutal apartheid regime and a new future for black South Africans.

So on this episode of BackStory, Joanne, Ed and Brian take a look at the complicated and often contentious relationship American officials and anti-racism activists have had with South Africa.

Image: President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela with members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Representative Kweisi Mfume, at an event at the Library of Congress. October 1994. Source: Library of Congress

Transcript

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0:00.0	Presenting Hop On Board, a podcast series by Southeastern, six podcasts, six celebrity
0:06.2	hosts, taking you on a whistle-stop tour of some of the best places to explore by rail
0:10.8	on the Southeastern network.
0:12.4	Join Greg Wallace as he tucks into delicious food and drink, rave-wilding, uncovering
0:17.2	unsolved mysteries and spooky happenings, and Miranda Sawyer getting Artie on the Ken
0:21.9	Coast.
0:22.9	Get the inside track on Kenton East Sussex with Hop On Board, listen now wherever you
0:27.2	get your podcasts.
0:30.0	Major funding for Backstories provided by Inanonymous Donor, the National Endowment for
0:34.8	the Humanities and the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation.
0:41.5	From Virginia Humanities, this is Backstory.
0:50.5	Welcome to Backstory, the show that explains the history behind the headlines.
0:54.2	I'm Ed Ayers.
0:55.2	I'm Joanne Freeman.
0:56.5	And I'm Brian Balla.
0:57.8	If you're new to the podcast, each week, along with our colleague Nathan Connelly, we
1:01.8	explore a different aspect of American history.
1:05.0	We're going to start the show in 1962, when one of the most celebrated figures of the
1:09.5	20th century found themselves in the grips of one of the world's most notorious regimes.
1:19.8	The figure was Nelson Mandela, and the regime was South Africa's apartheid government.
1:24.8	Mandela had spent most of 1962 abroad as a representative of the recently banned African
1:33.8	National Congress.
	...

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