In celebration of former president Nelson Mandela’s centenary, the Amathole Museum in King William’s Town will be opening a photographic exhibition titled Mandela @ All Saints on Wednesday.
The exhibition will showcase 15 photographs documenting Mandela’s visit to All Saints College in 1992. The images were taken by Peter King and Andrew Stevens, both teachers at All Saints – and amateur photographers at the time.
The exhibition will also include an extract from the impromptu speech Mandela delivered to the pupils on the day and will see then principal Michael Burton being the guest speaker.
“We’ve already got quite a few All Saints photographs up at the museum, documenting the college’s history, but our idea with this exhibition is to provide a platform for the two colleges – the old and the new – to meet while focusing on the role of Mandela’s legacy in both their stories,” said museum historian, Stephanie Victor, who curated the exhibition. All Saints College was a private school established in 1986 in the apartheid-created Ciskei bantustan, yet it prided itself on being a non-racial and anti-apartheid institution, striving for academic excellence in an unsettling political era.
“All Saints stood for ‘education for liberation’, because of this, I and many other staff members were threatened, some arrested and imprisoned, but it was worth it100 times over,” said Burton.
“We had lived through a very hot kitchen for a decade. A world icon stood and talked to me and the college which had come through it all and we were thus honoured.”
The college later became what it is today, the SAPS Detective Academy All Saints, with both schools prioritising the education of the leaders of tomorrow.
“The Madiba visit was momentous and I recall the event well. As he passed through the large foyer of the school, he was ‘persuaded’ by the students to address us and gave one of his wonderful speeches/homilies that had us teachers inwardly cheering, since he was underscoring the points we were trying to make to restless and impatient students: that education was most important at this stage of South Africa’s liberation,” said Stevens.
“It was the first time that many of the staff and students had seen Mandela in the flesh, so it was pretty extraordinary.”
Both men admit to being far from professional photographers, but said they were both involved in taking many photographs of school activities during their time at All Saints and still enjoy capturing images.
King said he always had his camera with him during the 1980s and 1990s and that a few of his photographs are already on display at the museum.
“I acted as the ‘official photographer’, taking all the school class photos. This was before the digital era so all of the All Saints photos, including those of Mandela’s visit, were taken on colour film, processed in Bhisho,” said Stevens. “The photographs of Mandela’s visit are there to record and tell the story of a remarkable visit by a remarkable man to a remarkable school. Sadly, all are now part of history.”
King said the exhibition was a great way to honour and reflect on Mandela’s legacy.
The exhibition opens at 1pm on Wednesday and it will be up until December. For more information please contact Victor at stephanie.v@museum.za.net
The day an icon visited . . .
Museum hosts photographic exhibit of Mandela’s visit to All Saints in 1992
Image: Andrew Stevens/File
In celebration of former president Nelson Mandela’s centenary, the Amathole Museum in King William’s Town will be opening a photographic exhibition titled Mandela @ All Saints on Wednesday.
The exhibition will showcase 15 photographs documenting Mandela’s visit to All Saints College in 1992. The images were taken by Peter King and Andrew Stevens, both teachers at All Saints – and amateur photographers at the time.
The exhibition will also include an extract from the impromptu speech Mandela delivered to the pupils on the day and will see then principal Michael Burton being the guest speaker.
“We’ve already got quite a few All Saints photographs up at the museum, documenting the college’s history, but our idea with this exhibition is to provide a platform for the two colleges – the old and the new – to meet while focusing on the role of Mandela’s legacy in both their stories,” said museum historian, Stephanie Victor, who curated the exhibition. All Saints College was a private school established in 1986 in the apartheid-created Ciskei bantustan, yet it prided itself on being a non-racial and anti-apartheid institution, striving for academic excellence in an unsettling political era.
“All Saints stood for ‘education for liberation’, because of this, I and many other staff members were threatened, some arrested and imprisoned, but it was worth it100 times over,” said Burton.
“We had lived through a very hot kitchen for a decade. A world icon stood and talked to me and the college which had come through it all and we were thus honoured.”
The college later became what it is today, the SAPS Detective Academy All Saints, with both schools prioritising the education of the leaders of tomorrow.
“The Madiba visit was momentous and I recall the event well. As he passed through the large foyer of the school, he was ‘persuaded’ by the students to address us and gave one of his wonderful speeches/homilies that had us teachers inwardly cheering, since he was underscoring the points we were trying to make to restless and impatient students: that education was most important at this stage of South Africa’s liberation,” said Stevens.
“It was the first time that many of the staff and students had seen Mandela in the flesh, so it was pretty extraordinary.”
Both men admit to being far from professional photographers, but said they were both involved in taking many photographs of school activities during their time at All Saints and still enjoy capturing images.
King said he always had his camera with him during the 1980s and 1990s and that a few of his photographs are already on display at the museum.
“I acted as the ‘official photographer’, taking all the school class photos. This was before the digital era so all of the All Saints photos, including those of Mandela’s visit, were taken on colour film, processed in Bhisho,” said Stevens. “The photographs of Mandela’s visit are there to record and tell the story of a remarkable visit by a remarkable man to a remarkable school. Sadly, all are now part of history.”
King said the exhibition was a great way to honour and reflect on Mandela’s legacy.
The exhibition opens at 1pm on Wednesday and it will be up until December. For more information please contact Victor at stephanie.v@museum.za.net
World leaders jetting in to Jozi for Mandela lecture
Nelson Mandela’s centenary birthday looms but no word on opening grave site to public
Would you like to comment on this article?
Register (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Trending Now
Latest Videos