May 23, 2008

From MSUToday...

MSU launches Web sites focused on South Africa

On May 2, MSU granted an honorary Doctorate of Laws to Nobel Peace Prize winner and former South African President Nelson Mandela to honor his lifetime of national and global leadership. Mandela is preparing to celebrate his 90th birthday in July. To commemorate MSU’s own long history with South Africa and some breakthrough accomplishments, the university cut the ribbon on new Web sites about South Africa for students, teachers and the public.

In his videotaped remarks from Johannesburg accepting the degree, Mandela said, "It is a privilege to receive the honorary degree from the Michigan State University. We recall your support during our struggle for freedom... We are inspired by your numerous programs that continue to support our efforts to transform our country."

Because of its opposition to apartheid, MSU was the first major U.S. public university to divest its stock in companies that operated in South Africa by action of the Board of Trustees in 1978. The continuing engagement of some MSU faculty and students with South Africa has resulted in just-launched online resources about that struggle.

The African Studies Center and MATRIX, a digital humanities center, hosted a ribbon cutting for the new sites that offer to the public interviews with South African activists, more than 100 pieces of video documenting that struggle and many more multimedia resources.

South Africa: Overcoming Apartheid, Building Democracy is an educational resource about the movement for freedom and democracy in South Africa. A collaboration between MATRIX, the MSU African Studies Center, and the Department of History, the site includes 45 video and audio interviews with South African activists, raw video footage documenting mass resistance and police repression, historical documents, rare photographs, original narratives, and educational activities for high school and undergraduate students. Support was received from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The site draws on the talents of several members of the department, including Professors Mark Kornbluh, Peter Alegi, Peter Limb, and David Bailey, along with graduate students Mona Jackson and Leslie Hadfield, who wrote essays for the site. View a three-minute preview video.

African Activist Archive is an archive of images, documents, and audio and video that record the solidarity actions across the United States in support of the struggles for freedom and democracy in Africa Additional contributions to the site are being solicited, and the site is being redesigned and expanded. In conjunction with this digital archive, the MSU Libraries Special Collections has created an African Activist Archive to which seven personal and organizational collections already have been donated; more are welcome. Support is being provided by the Ford Foundation and many individuals and organizations.

Community Video Educational Trust (CVET) is a digital video archive with more than 100 pieces of documentary footage of anti-apartheid activities and state repression in the Cape Town area in the 1980s and early 1990s. These videos are being preserved and made accessible in a partnership between CVET and MATRIX and the African Studies Center at MSU, part of a larger South African Film and Video Project. History graduate student Jill Kelly and undergraduate student Cody Perkins also worked on this project.

At the South African launch of the CVET video archive, attended by 300 young people from the Cape Town area, Zulfah Otto-Sallies, filmmaker and Chairperson of CVET said, “We are very thankful to Michigan State University for this partnership that brings the archive out of cardboard boxes to use as a resource for Human Rights Education. We are excited about bringing these important stories to the youth of today.”

Yusuf Omar, South African Consul General to Chicago, came to MSU both to accept the honorary degree on behalf of Nelson Mandela and to share his thoughts about the new online resources. Omar, whose personal interview about his participation in the struggle inside the country is included in South Africa: Overcoming Apartheid, Building Democracy, explained that these sites will "…ensure that the sacrifices that were made by those whose names you won't hear mentioned will be acknowledged and not overlooked... Long after our heroes are gone, they will be speaking to our children from screens and speakers and headsets."

Melanie Foster, vice chairperson of the MSU Board of Trustees, summarized the strong foundation on which these online resources have been built. Before cutting the ribbon with Omar, Foster said, "What you see here today is the result of a decade of collaboration between the African Studies Center and MATRIX. What you see here today is interdisciplinary research, scholarship, and outreach at its best... We are proud that these Web sites bear the name of Michigan State University."