African Activist Archive

The first three years of the Fund for A Free South Africa (FreeSA) coincided with very heavy repression in South Africa. Under the State of Emergency in 1986, 32 organizations have been restricted, at least 30,000 activists have been detained, and many others have been put under strict banning orders. The media are forced to operate on heavy censorship. The report lists grants to groups outside South Africa, including these four in Lusaka, Zambia: the Dora Tamana Creche, the Women's Section and Youth Project of the ANC, and Chongela Farm; Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (SOMAFCO) and ANC-Holland Solidarity Hospital, both in Mazimbu, Tanzania; Mamophosho Women's Silk-Screening Project in Harare, Zimbabwe; and three organizations in Boston: Vusisizwe Players, the Committee for Health in Southern Africa (CHISA), and International Defense and Aid Fund (IDAF). Names of organizations inside South Africa that received grants are redacted. They include three groups affiliated with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU); an organization forming a union of black nurses; and a group of parents, students, and teachers. The FreeSA Board of Directors includes Margaret Burnham, Toby D'Oench, Mfundi Vundla, Janet Axelrod, Beate Klein, Melba Kgositsile, Bernard Magubane, Mokubung Nkomo, and Geoffrey Norman. Advisory Board members are Rev. Tshenuweni Simon Farisani (Evangelical Lutheran Church), Archie Gumede and Albertina Sisulu (United Democratic Front, UDF), Sakumzi Macozoma (South African Council of Churches, SACC), Winnie Mandela, Zwelakhe Sisulu (New Nation), and, in the United States, Dr. Johnetta B. Cole, Ronald V. Dellums, Paul Epstein, M.D., Danny Glove, Henry Hampton, Willard Johnson, Gretchen Kalonji, June Makela, Mackie McLeod, George Pillsbury, and State Assembly Representative Maxine Waters. Steering Committee members are Janet Axelrod, Margaret Burnham, Ilene Carver, Caroline Hunter, Geoffrey Norman, Mary Tiseo, and Rachel Weiss.

African Activist Archive

FUND FOR A FREE SOUTH AFRICA Progress Report

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