Place of Thorns - Tshepo Moloi

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and Literary Papers and the South African History Archive, for their help in all my enquiries.

      I am deeply grateful for permission to use the South African Democracy Education Trust’s interviews. Thanks also to Dr. Twala for allowing me to use some of his interviews. The late Pule “Yster” Moino, Dr. Anthony Bouwer and Ntate Dhlamini, I thank you for unselfishingly making available your reading materials on Kroonstad. I would also like to thank all the residents of Kroonstad who gave me permission to use their phoographs, and in helping to locate them.

      Tshegofatso Leeuw, Plantinah Dire and Molefe Mahautsa helped with transcribing and translating the interviews; and Esmeralda Dicks and Malebone Rapoo did a splendid job in translating some of the Afrikaans materials to English. Without your assistance this book would not have come to completion.

      Much of the success of this book is the result of the people who read and commented on the manuscript, especially the anonymous readers; and the editors Pat Tucker and Monica Seeber. I am grateful to the Wits University Press for undertaking to publish this book. Roshan Cader and Andrew Joseph helped in steering the process of the publication.

      I take this opportunity to thank my family, especially my parents, Stoffel and Edith, for their understanding and unwavering support under trying times. To my brothers, Thabo, Tebogo and Kagiso, thank you for your constant enquiries about the progress of the book. My special thanks are also due to Asania Aphane and our daughter Thato.

      Lastly, but not least, I owe a great deal of gratitude to the residents of Kroonstad’s black townships, who this study is about. Their patience, openness, friendship and trust spurred me on. I owe particular thanks to Ntate Ngope Motaung, Andre Kotze at the Moqhaka Municipality Archives, and Ntate Mokete Victor Duma, the former municipal manager of Moqhaka municipality, for granting me permission to use the municipality’s archives. I am particularly grateful to Ntate Motaung for his relentless assistance in accessing these archives. A great deal of gratitude is owing to all my interviewees (their names are listed below). Without your support and cooperation this work would not have been possible. Thank you very much.

ANC African National Congress
ANCYL African National Congress Youth League
APLA Azanian People’s Liberation Army
Azapo Azanian People’s Organisation
Azasm Azanian Student Movement
BC Black Consciousness
BCM Black Consciousness Movement
Cosas Congress of the South African Students
Cosatu Congress of South African Trade Unions
DET Department of Education and Training
Fawu Food and Allied Workers’ Union
ICU Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union
IFP Inkatha Freedom Party
JC Junior Certificate
Kroonso Kroonstad Student Organisation
Manco management committee
Masac Maokeng Student Art Club
Mayco Maokeng Youth Congress
MCA Maokeng Civic Association
MDM Mass Democratic Movement
MK Umkhonto we Sizwe
NP National Party
OFS Orange Free State
OFSATA Orange Free State African Teachers Association
PAC Pan Africanist Congress
RDP Reconstruction and Development Programme
SACC South African Council of Churches
Samwu South African Municipal Workers’ Union
Sanco South African National Civic Organisation
SANNC South African Native National Congress
SAP South African Police
SASM South African Students Movement
Saso South African Student Organisation
Sayco South African Youth Congress
SOYA Society of Young Africans
SRC Student Representative Council
TRC Truth and Reconciliation Commission
UDF United Democratic Movement
UWC University of the Western Cape
YCW Young Christian Workers

      What is it about an undistinguished, if picturesque, northern Free State town called Kroonstad – or, more accurately, its black residential areas – that makes it a fertile field of study for a social historian?

      For one thing, its history. Seventy-five years after it was established in 1855, Kroonstad was recognised as the second-largest town in the then Orange Free State (OFS). The town has two black townships: Maokeng1 (‘place of thorns’ in Sesotho), whose black residents initially came from all over South Africa and from neighbouring countries; and Brentpark, established in the latter half of the 1950s to accommodate the town’s coloured community in line with the requirements of the Group Areas Act.

      This book demonstrates that in the 1980s Kroonstad’s black residential areas lagged behind other black residential areas across the country when it came to protest politics. This was mainly because in Maokeng and Brentpark, at least until 1989, there were no pressing socioeconomic grievances – these areas were led by, respectively, the town council and management committee which made every effort to meet the residents’ basic service needs without increasing rent (or, at least, by keeping it at an affordable level).

      The study that led to this book concentrates on a politically significant area which has received scant scholarly attention. In fact, in their chapter on activists’ networks and political protest in the Free State, historians Chitja Twala and Jeremy Seekings make an important observation: ‘... overall, political struggles in the Free State did not compare with those in many other parts of the country’.2 Perhaps this has discouraged researchers

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