Meeting Daisy Makiwane... Reading Race, Collecting Cultures - The Roving Reader Files

Abstract The Roving Reader Files category of blog posts is produced by Alison Newby (under the pseudonym The Roving Reader) in collaboration with Hannah Niblett (Collections Access Officer, Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre). The former provides the text and the latter normally provides the images. The Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre is an open access University of Manchester facility, and The Roving Reader Files are designed as public engagement materials. The intention is to introduce research skills and terminology to the general user/reader in an entertaining yet informative manner by revealing hidden stories, making unusual connections and sharing insights into using the Centre's collection for research. The blog post "Meeting Daisy Makiwane..." is part of a series exploring the links between items held by other institutions/collections and the race relations theme/holdings of the Centre. This post looks into what can be learnt about Daisy Makiwane (the sister of anti-apartheid activist Tennyson Makiwane), who was crucial in facilitating the channelling of funds to her brother which enabled him to travel to London in 1959, where he became a key orchestrator of the anti-apartheid Boycott Movement. Combining the memories of Manu Herbstein (who had met Daisy and Tennyson Makiwane at the time of these activities) and the contents of a flyer preserved in the Records of the 1956 Treason Trial held by the Historical Papers Research Archive at the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa), the blog post assesses the few scraps of information about Daisy that have survived. Daisy all but disappeared from history, yet as the flyer shows, in the mid-1950s in London she was appearing on a panel discussing South African problems alongside exiled giants of the anti-apartheid cause such as H A Naidoo, E S (Solly) Sachs and Guy Routh. "Meeting Daisy Makiwane..." is a follow-up post to "Tennyson Makiwane comes to London - but how?" Further blog posts in this series are: "Massacre of the Missionaries" ; "The Devil Man Springs to Life" ; "Day in, Day out: Reminiscence work in Monsall"