Interview Archive

Rose Marie Whalley traces her political awakening to the Sharpeville massacre and her early organizing in London. She recalls anti-apartheid campaigns in Montreal, consumer boycotts, public demonstrations and the role of nonviolent civil disobedience in bringing attention to injustice. - Rose Marie was born in England, where she took part in Ban the Bomb marches as a girl. After she emigrated to Canada, she joined the anti-apartheid movement in the 1970s. Rose Marie is a lifelong activist and host of the radio show Older Women Live, or OWL, on CKUT. She was also a frequent contributor to Amandla!. She is now actively involved in Palestine solidarity work.

Marian White remembers how her experience as a CUSO volunteer in Nigeria informed her later activism on Prince Edward Island. She discusses cultural performances, visiting speakers, community organizing and connections between anti-apartheid work and other solidarity movements. - Marian went to Nigeria as a CUSO co-operant in the late 1970s to work as a teacher. On her return to her home in Prince Edward Island, she started organizing tours by exiled South African artists and speakers to Canada. She worked for CUSO as their staffer for Atlantic Canada from 1994 until 2013. She continues to be engaged in grassroots activism in PEI on a number of issues.

Becca Whitla looks back on her early involvement with Youth Against Apartheid and Canadians Concerned About Southern Africa in Toronto. She describes high-school organizing, public education, protests and how music, faith and a commitment to justice shaped her activism. - Becca is an Anglican priest who divides her time between Saskatoon and Toronto. She taught theology, liturgy and sacred music at St. Andrew’s College in Saskatoon, where she held the Dr. Lydia E. Gruchy Chair in Pastoral Theology. Becca has been part of community choirs and musical activism all her life, including co-founding the Echo Community Women’s Choir in Toronto in 1991. She co-founded Youth Against Apartheid in Toronto in the 1980s, which brought African expatriates and exiles together with young adults to protest, sing, and demonstrate for sanctions.

Garry Worth recounts his work in British Columbia’s pulp and paper unions and the Confederation of Canadian Unions. He discusses the SACTU Solidarity Committee’s outreach to workers, research into trade with South Africa, and efforts to support sanctions against apartheid. - Garry was active in the Pulp and Paper Workers union (PPWC), and later the Private and Public Workers Union of Canada in the late 1970s. He encouraged PPWC to sponsor tours by SACTU Solidarity Committee members around the resource towns of British Columbia, and helped SACTU identify the pulp mills in British Columbia that were sending pulp to South Africa. Garry was elected president of the Kamloops Local 10 in the 1980s, and in 1995 he was elected national President of PPWC.

Hassan Yussuff recalls arriving in Canada from Guyana, finding a political home in the trade union movement, and joining the SACTU Solidarity Committee. He reflects on how working people mobilized against apartheid through education, organizing, fundraising and international solidarity. - Hassan emigrated from Guyana to Canada, where he worked in an auto parts factory, and experienced Canadian racism firsthand as a young immigrant worker of colour. He was elected plant chairman and later became Director of the Canadian Auto Workers Human Rights Department, then President of the Canadian Labour Congress. He was a member of the SACTU Solidarity Committee and promoted Canadian union support of SACTU in many union fora. Hassan was named to the Canadian Senate in 2021.