Interview Archive

Amy Kaler recalls student activism at McGill University, the campaign to divest from companies connected to apartheid South Africa, and the organizing that helped win a vote in favour of divestment on the university’s Board of Governors. - Amy is a professor of Sociology at the University of Alberta and has lived in Edmonton for 26 years. She became involved in the student anti-apartheid movement when she attended McGill University as an undergraduate in the mid-1980s, where she played a leadership role in the divestment campaign. She spent three years as a WUSC co-operant in rural Zimbabwe after graduating from McGill.

Jef Keighley describes anti-apartheid organizing on Canada’s West Coast, from consumer boycotts and union education to waterfront actions against South African goods. He reflects on the practical role of trade unions in sustaining international solidarity campaigns. - Jef worked for CUSO for several years in the 1970s in Jamaica and Vancouver. During his time in Vancouver, he also joined the Southern Africa Action Coalition, which brought union activists together with people from other sectors. Jef later took a job at the Kenworth truck plant. He became a shop steward of the Canadian Association of Industrial, Mechanical and Allied Workers (CAIMAW) union and worked as CAIMAW staff through the 1980s and after the merger with the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW). Jef promoted the work of the SACTU Solidarity Committee within CAIMAW and CAW.

John Lang and Laurell Ritchie discuss the Confederation of Canadian Unions, the role of independent unions in international solidarity and the relationships that helped the SACTU Solidarity Committee organize support for South African workers. - John served as Secretary-Treasurer of the Confederation of Canadian Trade Unions from 1978 to 1992. He supported the work of the SACTU Solidarity Committee as a matter of CCU policy, and the CCU became the first Canadian union federation to endorse the SACTU Solidarity Committee in 1981. After completing a law degree, John joined the legal staff of the CAW. - Laurell became an organizer with the Confederation of Canadian Unions (CCU) shortly after graduating from high school in the late 1970s. She learned about apartheid through her union work, and helped to bring about the CCU's endorsement of the SACTU Solidarity Committee in 1981. Laurell went on to a long career as an activist in feminist, international solidarity, and social justice work.

Ken Luckhardt recalls how an anti-apartheid cricket protest in Edmonton led to deeper work with the South African Congress of Trade Unions. He describes researching its history, interviewing exiled organizers and mobilizing support through the Canadian labour movement. - Ken was born in the United States and came to Canada because he refused to participate in the US war in Vietnam. As a graduate student at the University of Alberta, he and Brenda Wall joined Edmonton’s Free South Africa Committee, organizing boycotts and protests. Ken and Brenda took their research skills to SACTU’s leadership in London, which tasked them with writing Organize or Starve!, the history of SACTU. Ken returned to Canada and worked full-time for the SACTU Solidarity Committee in the early 1980s, and later became a staffperson for CAW. In 2024, Ken and Brenda received the Order of the Companions of O.R. Tambo silver medal from the South African government for their anti-apartheid activism.

Doug Miller reflects on his introduction to African liberation politics at Carleton University, his CUSO work in Malawi and Zambia, and his role in building Canadian networks of information and practical support for movements struggling against colonialism and apartheid. - Doug taught English from 1968 to 1972 in Malawi as a co-operant with CUSO, where he became acutely aware of the injustices of apartheid. In Ottawa from 1972 to 1975, he edited and published a newsclipping service for the Southern Africa Information Group. From 1976 to 1979, he coordinated CUSO's Lusaka support for the liberation movements in Southern Africa. Throughout the 1980s, he was the liaison person with Québec-based unions for the SACTU Solidarity Committee. With the end of apartheid, he joined the Amandla! team producing a weekly radio show about African affairs on CKUT, and was a driving force in collecting the testimonials for Small Little Foot Soldiers.

Anne Mitchell recounts her involvement in Canadian anti-apartheid organizing and the establishment of the Canadian committee of the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa. She describes public education, fundraising and confidential assistance to the families of political prisoners. - Anne was born in Scotland and grew up hearing about the injustices of apartheid in South Africa and going to protests. She emigrated to Canada as a young adult and became a social worker in Ottawa. After visiting the Frontline States as part of a group organized by the Ottawa-Hull Learner Centre (later World Inter-Action Mondiale), she helped start the Canadian committee of the International Defence and Aid Fund for South Africa.

Michael Murphy traces his path from Ireland to CUSO work in Zambia and international solidarity organizing in Saskatchewan. He reflects on public education, Oxfam, liberation movements in Southern Africa and the networks that mobilized Canadians against apartheid. - Michael moved from Ireland to Canada and then to Zambia in 1969 as an adult educator before becoming CUSO country coordinator in Lusaka and then Blantyre. He was a key member of the staff and volunteers in Southern Africa advocating progressive, activist support for the Southern African liberation movements. He settled in Saskatoon in the late 1970s and worked with Oxfam Canada and later Development and Peace, keeping apartheid on the provincial conscience as well as other social justice issues. He passed away in 2025.

Mtshana Ncube recounts his involvement with ZAPU and the Zimbabwean liberation movement, his years studying and organizing in the United States and Canada, and the importance of building international solidarity while respecting the independence of liberation organizations. - Mtshana was a ZAPU activist in white-ruled Rhodesia before studying Political Science in the US in 1964 and Law at McGill University in 1970. He actively represented Zimbabwe’s struggle and was widely respected in anti-apartheid circles in Québec and across Canada. He returned to Lusaka to join ZAPU full time in 1976 and was assigned to head their UN delegation and serve as their North America representative in 1979 during the final stages of the Zimbabwe struggle. He passed away in 2020.

South African-born activist Dan O’Meara discusses growing up under apartheid, his involvement in liberation politics, and his later work in Quebec with CIDMAA. He reflects on the different movements, organizations and strategies that shaped anti-apartheid solidarity in Canada. - Dan is a retired Professor of Political Science who taught at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) from 1988 to 2025. Born in South Africa in 1948, he became a student activist when the emerging Black Consciousness Movement obliged white radicals like him to rethink their anti-apartheid politics. In exile, he joined the African National Congress in 1976 and taught in Dar es Salaam and Maputo. Coming to Montréal in 1986, he worked with the Centre d’information et de documentation sur le Mozambique et l’Afrique australe (CIDMAA). He was a regular contributor to Amandla!. He left the ANC following its turn to neoliberal economics in 1996. He is the author or co-author of six books and numerous articles on Southern African politics.

Carol Phillips recalls her years as a union activist at De Havilland and her work with the United Auto Workers, the Canadian Labour Congress and the SACTU Solidarity Committee. She reflects on workplace organizing, women in the labour movement and campaigns against apartheid. - Carol served as the Bargaining Committee Chair with the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), and Chair of CAW Local 673, de Havilland Aircraft when she established relations with the SACTU Solidarity Committee. Later, she was Director of Education Development and Director of International Development for CAW, and head of the Canadian Labour Congress Women’s Bureau.

Joe Pillay describes his participation in anti-apartheid organizing in South Africa, his underground work with Umkhonto we Sizwe, the dangers that forced him to leave the country, and his later life in Alberta. - Joe is a retired social worker living in Edmonton. He was born in South Africa and joined the ANC in the 1970s when it was a banned organization, becoming a member of an underground cell. He fled to Swaziland when the South African police discovered his cell. Joe came to Canada as a refugee, joining his wife Barbara Baer Pillay in Edmonton. While working as a teacher for the Tallcree First Nation in northern Alberta, he participated in the building of the ANC’s encrypted communication network. He founded the first alternative school for street-involved youth in Edmonton.

Postal worker and union activist Marion Pollack reflects on SACTU solidarity in Vancouver, support for South African workers, and the challenges of addressing sexism and racism within Canada’s labour movement. - Marion was hired at the Vancouver post office in 1974 and became a Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) shop steward. She was a delegate from her local to the Vancouver Labour Council where she learned about apartheid and joined the SACTU Solidarity Committee. She supported labour actions such as refusing to handle South African mail or cargo that arrived in Canada. Later, she was the Vice-President of the Vancouver Labour Council. She remained an activist within her union and the Labour Council, in particular on gender issues, but also in the 1980s on international solidarity.