DA's predecessor urged talks with ANC back in 1960

I have been wading through some Press clippings of articles I wrote in 1985, about a year after I started working as a reporter on the Evening Post/ Weekend Post in Port Elizabeth. In light of the Democratic Alliance campaign for people to get to know the history of the party's role in the anti-apartheid struggle, I thought I'd reproduce one article which has a bearing on this. The second article shows just how fraught the situation was under the state of emergency. (Press control/left click on the images to read them in a larger format. Click again on it to see them larger still.)

I had this published in July, 1985, in the Weekend Post. Notice how, in the second last paragraph, it is recorded that the Progressive Party (forerunner of the DA and then led by Dr Jan Steytler) advocated negotiations with the ANC. Helen Suzman was the party's sole MP at the time.

In this piece I report on a funeral which took place under the state of emergency. The United Democratic Front's response to the emergency and mass detention of activists was to impose a consumer boycott of white-owned shops. I'll  post some of the articles I wrote about this shortly.