The legendary photojournalist and anti-apartheid activist Dr Peter Magubane has passed away. Magubane passed away in early January 2024.
Raised in Sophiatown, Magubane was 16 years old when the Apartheid regime came into power.
He began his career in 1954 as a driver for Drum Magazine. He quickly rose the ranks and was soon working as a photographer. He famously documented the 9 August 1956 Women’s March to Pretoria, where 20,000 women marched to The Union Buildings to oppose pass laws.
He survived being shot 17 times at a student’s funeral in Natalspruit, Gauteng Province and endured over 586 days in solitary confinement in 1969. The apartheid government imposed a five-ban ban on Magubane’s photography.
“I used my camera as a gun. I was prepared to die for my freedom,” said Magubane in a 2009 interview. He published 20 photographic books and received several honorary doctorates. He was also Nelson Mandela’s personal photographer.
Magubane was afforded a Special Provincial Official Funeral Category Two, where President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered the eulogy. “Peter Magubane’s images, and those of his peers, upended Hendrik Verwoerd’s lies that apartheid was a benign benevolence,” the president told mourners.
Magubane was buried this afternoon at the Fourways Memorial Park.
Magubane’s dedication to his photography helped pave the way for the removal of apartheid. He showed the world how the apartheid government treated the Black majority but also showed pockets of Black joy. Rest in peace, and thank you for the art.
- Staff Reporterhttps://explain.co.za/author/staff-reporter/
- Staff Reporterhttps://explain.co.za/author/staff-reporter/
- Staff Reporterhttps://explain.co.za/author/staff-reporter/
- Staff Reporterhttps://explain.co.za/author/staff-reporter/