Lives of Courage

In 1987 and 1988 Dr. Diana Russell journeyed from the United States to the land of her birth to learn about the special role of women in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. The fruit of her research is this extraordinary book: the first hand accounts in their own words of 24 courageous risk-taking women activists (portraits included). These are not only world-famous leaders like Winnie Mandela and Albertina Sisulu (although their stories <U>are</U> included in the book) but ordinary women who were trade unionists members of radical organizations student activists -- black and white African Indian and Coloured young and old.</p><P><I>Lives of Courage: Women for a New South Africa</I> compellingly dramatizes the little-known role of women who fought apartheid and its cruel apparatus -- banning banishment house arrest imprisonment and torture -- even as they strove to keep together their beleaguered families. With rare candor they speak of the price they and families paid for their activism of the difficulties of being a woman in a racist and sexist society of the terrors they had endured and of the dreams they nourished of a new South Africa. The fighting spirit of these women their courage and conviction in the face of a modern state's vindictiveness shines from every page of this inspiring book.