Whites Only/ Net Blankes

South Africa . c.1985

Wooden sign (940x170mm). Metal plate screwed to each end, Painted brown with white lettering, some traces of blue paint showing through. Cracked along the centre but still holding. These unnerving signs were perhaps the most obvious manifestation of the day to day humiliation of "Petty Apartheid". Politics, as it affects ordinary people in their ordinary lives, takes place at a mundane level, apparently far removed from the machinations of the powerful. Political power, at its most basic and most pernicious, is the state telling you which bus to travel on, which beach to swim on and which bench to sit on. This sign is a political statement. It was removed, as an act of political protest from a bench in Kalk Bay on the Cape Peninsula on 15th March 1986. On the back is written in white ink "15.3.86 S.A.R. (rescued by) Giles. Kalk Bay".
Sold with:
Anti-apartheid struggle T-Shirt. c1985. White shirt, printed in black with a man's face and the words "Wherever we go, however we look, Yes Means Yes and No means No. You can Speak". T-shirts such as this were printed during the 1985 State of Emergency. Making them and even owning and wearing one could result in arrest and imprisonment without trial.

All of the sale proceeds of this item will be donated to a South African Educational Charity.