Rent $4.50
Stream - One week's rental Buy $8.00
Download - For private home use only Get Screening Licence

RFK in the Land of Apartheid

Feature - 56 min

A Ripple of Hope...

RFK in the Land of Apartheid Using never-before-seen archival footage, this beautifully produced documentary brings one of history's most inspiring chapters to life. This is the previously untold story of Robert Kennedy's visit to South Africa at the height of Apartheid.
"For Robert Kennedy to go there, was an enormous statement. It was the first time anyone had gone to Soweto and said 'you're a human being'". Whilst the Cold War ideology of anti-communism gripped America, a Junior US Senator stood on top of a moving car in Soweto, without security, and shaking hands with the crowds of people that followed him wherever he went. No white person had ever received such a greeting in South Africa. A journalist at the time wrote: "He made us feel, more than ever, that it was still worthwhile, despite our great difficulties, for us to fight for the things that we believed in".

"That is our only philosophy - anti-communism? I think we stand for something. I think we stand for something positive." Kennedy's radical words in his famous 'Ripple of Hope' speech in Cape Town, were met with rapturous applause. For many Americans, the reports coming out of South Africa in the 1960's seemed hauntingly similar to the Civil Rights Movement in America. Kennedy showed not only that the world hadn't turned their back on South Africa, but that an end to racism was possible. "Your message shows clearly that the world has forever turned its back on racial discrimination, and that the South African Government's blind worship of race theories is a pathetic and tragic defiance of the realities of the Twentieth Century".

Kennedy risked everything by meeting and forming a friendship with Chief Luthuli - one of Africa's great leaders, forced into exile by the 'Supression of Communism Act', he speaks candidly with Kennedy in rare archive: "I feel that Africa is my continent and I must free Africa". By the last night of his visit, Kennedy had begun to have a political impact in South Africa beyond the Black majority and the white liberal universities. He spoke with Afrikaans students at the pro-apartheid University of Stellenbosch, boldly challenging them: "Suppose God is black?".

The legacy of his words and actions can be felt even today, in the legion of black South Africans who declare proudly: "My name is Kennedy". Together with the activities of various other American individuals and organisations working to mobilise American opinion about the situation in South Africa in the Sixties, Senator Kennedy's visit helped to plant seeds -for what was to take another two and a half long decades to bare fruit. In the context of the Unites States activities in Africa in the 1960s, this previously untold chapter will go down as one of the West's most positive contributions.


.
.
.www.rfksafilm.org/html/about.php"
FULL SYNOPSIS

WATCH MORE
www.rfksafilm.org/html/about.php
JOIN THE DISCUSSION
LEARN MORE

TRANSCRIPT

The Producers


The film is produced and directed by Larry Shore, who grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he was a junior high school student at the time of Robert Kennedy’s visit. He obtained his BA at the University of the Witwatersrand and was active in NUSAS and the Wilgerspruit Fellowship Center. He moved to the United States in 1973. He has an MA in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in Communications from Stanford University. He is a professor in the Film & Media Studies Department at Hunter College (CUNY) in New York.

The film is directed by Tami Gold who's award winning documentaries have been televised over PBS and HBO and have screened at many festivals and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the Sundance Film Festival, and the Tribeca Film Festival. She has lectured on panels at The Kennedy Center, the INPUT International Television Conference among others. Tami is a professor in the Film and Media Studies Department at Hunter College in New York.

Making The Film


DIRECTOR LARRY SHORE - "Senator Kennedy’s visit to South Africa in June 1966 remains the most important visit an American made to South Africa because it took place during the worst years of Apartheid. The architect of Apartheid, Dr. Verwoerd, was Prime Minister, while Nelson Mandela, Chief Albert Luthuli and other opposition leaders were in prison on Robben Island or in exile. With rare exception, all opposition across the spectrum of black and white South Africa- political parties, the universities, the churches, the arts and the media- were living under the tight control of the National Party and its military, bureaucratic and ideological machinery."

OTHER FILMS YOU MAY LIKE

FEATURED FILMS

This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. For more info see our Cookies Policy