Sat 9 Aug: Having read a large swathe of letters to and also by Robert Shepherd (successor to James Henderson as Principal of Lovedale) written up to around 1970, I’m puzzled but not surprised by a governing silence. There were riots at Lovedale in 1920. There were riots again in the period 1946 to 1948, heralded by ‘troubles’ and the boys (aka boys and young men) being difficult and restless and dissatisfied, resulting in arson and stonings and considerable violence towards non-participating black people, with a long rumbling aftermath. Both are well documented, not least by a local Commission of Inquiry. In 1960, however, in Shepherd’s letters there is no sign nor whisper of the events of Sharpeville nor even of any serious troubles occurring. Even more remarkably, the major inquiry that occurred afterwards figures not at all. White life went on, ‘they’ as political protagonists did not feature at Lovedale under Shepherd, only as ‘trouble-makers’ and as ‘disloyal’ to Shepherd personally; and no matters the shivers of fear or worry that white people felt, nothing much was written domestically that acknowledged this.

Last updated: 11 Aug 2014