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FEBRUARY 2006

Justice Albie Sachs:
African Freedom Fighter

By Joan baum, Ph.D.

It’s rare that students studying history get to meet leading players in landmark events, but recently, at Facing History High School (FHHS), a New Visions school on West 50th Street, a group of youngsters—and then the entire class of 108 9th graders—had a chance to see, listen to and question South African freedom fighter Justice Albie Sachs. The Justice, looking hale for his 70-something years, despite prolonged spells in solitary confinement and the loss of an arm and sight in one eye, when racist car bombers went after him for his work on behalf of the African National Congress (ANC), sits on the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the nation’s highest judicial body. As expressed by FHHS Assistant Principal Gillian Smith, the thrill of the youngsters meeting someone “who did that” is unique.

For the last ten years, Justice Sachs has been sharing his professional and personal life with Vanessa September, a handsome, articulate “colored” woman who, before the ending of apartheid, would not have been able to live with Justice Sachs in an area formerly reserved for whites, let alone pursue her dream of becoming an urban architect.  But she is living proof of what the freedom fighters, black and white, wrought in South Africa. Justice Sachs, who speaks of his life’s work as a kind of moral imperative, said that he felt “privileged,” first, because he had been able, as a white, to go to law school, and then because he participated in the liberation movement led by Nelson Mandela and the ANC. It was Mandela, in fact, who appointed him in 1994 to the Constitutional Court. Those were “tough days, tricky times,” he says quietly of the years he spent fighting for justice in an all-white court system. They were also also tough, obviously because of the sacrifices of his own life, but incredibly, Albie Sachs points out that others, mainly blacks, suffered more.

FHHS students had several opportunities to hear this amazing couple, including a small “advisory group” breakfast where they listened to Ms. September talk about the South African school system and how it changed after apartheid into one curriculum, one standard for all, though those who have money, black and white, can opt to send their children to schools with better resources and equipment than what some townships can offer, an inequality she and Justice Sachs continue to address. At a full assembly Ms. September led a slide-show presentation of the housing boom in South Africa today, at one point directing the pointer to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela had been imprisoned.  Did Justice Sachs see similarities between the Holocaust and apartheid?  Except for the fact that Nazi Germany and South Africa were both “race obsessed,” there is no need to compare horrors, he said. The Nazi regime was “overthrown,” apartheid was “overcome.”  Who was the biggest influence on his life. “Me,” he smiles broadly, empty sleeve flapping in the emphasis. He meant that his own experiences were his influences, and that instead of looking to role models youngsters would be better advised to look to themselves and chart a path—to face history and themselves. What is he doing now? Another smile—among other activities, he is visiting American schools talking about the mission of the South African Constitution and the need for reconciliation, justice and dignity. Among his many fine writings, The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter should be noted, the new edition containing a forward by Desmond Tutu.

FHHS was started last September in conjunction with Facing History and Ourselves, an international education and professional development organization whose mission is to “foster more humane and informed citizenry by examining racism, prejudice and anti-Semitism” and to get students to “think critically about their own behavior and its effect on the community.” Central in this effort has been the Community Conversations series dedicated to “Rebuilding Communities in the Aftermath of Violence and Injustice” in which Albie Sachs and Vanessa September were taking part, thanks in large part to the Allstate Foundation, an independent, charitable organization” seeking to promote tolerance, inclusion, diversity, and economic empowerment.” Clearly FHHS students had an unusual and memorable example of the significance of the name of their school.#

www.facinghistory.org

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