The man who drove Mandela

[dsc]

I learned something very interesting this evening about Nelson Mandela and South Africa. One big reason Mandela was so pro gay rights was the man he drove and hid out with in the late 1950's and early 1960's was gay.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1589/is_/ai_57155934

In 1962, on a dirt road in Howick, South Africa, Cecil Williams and Nelson Mandela were quietly arrested. For weeks Mandela had been posing as chauffeur to Williams, a handsome, aristocratic white man, to elude police while rallying support for the growing antiapartheid rebellion. But Williams abhorred the institutionalized servitude imposed on black South Africans, and that day he insisted on doing his share of the driving. The sight of Williams behind the wheel while Mandela rode in back was too odd for police to ignore, and the two men were recognized. Mandela was sentenced to life in prison; Williams, himself a freedom fighter--and a gay man--was released the following day.

Though Williams was a central figure in early antiapartheid activism, he died in exile in London in 1979 and has been all but forgotten. The Man Who Drove With Mandela, airing as part of the PBS Independent Lens series through November (check local listings), attempts to change that. Produced and directed by Greta Schiller (Paris Was a Woman) and written by journalist Mark Gevisser, the film is a pastiche of interviews with Williams's political comrades, home movies of gay life in South Africa in the '50s, and monologues based on Williams's writing that are performed in character by Corin Redgrave. "We never directly asked about Cecil's homosexuality," says Schiller, referring to a portion of the film in which the former president of South Africa recalls the events of that day. "But I knew he supported gay and lesbian people because he has openly gay people in his government, he included us in his inauguration speech, and he supports the repeal of all antigay laws. Albie Sachs told Mark that if you want to understand why the African National Congress is so tolerant of gay people, look to Comrade Cecil Williams."


I learned this watching "To be Straight with you" a dance performance by an English group that interviewed people who were either very religious, gay or both to see why both Muslims and people from the Carribean are so anti gay.