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♪♪ (dramatic music playing) ♪♪
- (indistinct chatter) - ♪♪ (pensive music playing) ♪♪
(traffic rumbling)
(siren wailing in distance)
♪♪ (somber music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: "November 25th, 1968."
"To the Alien Commissioner, Norwegian Government,
Oslo, Norway."
"Dear sir, I was born on March 21, 1940,
at Pretoria, South Africa."
"I'm presently 28, and unmarried."
"I am a stateless person in political exile in New York."
"I've been advised
that my passport will not be renewed,
but that I could obtain
an emergency travel certificate."
"I've been in the US for the past 26 months,
and while this experience has been insightful for me,
I cannot afford to remain here much longer
since the nature of my work requires me to travel."
"Without wishing to be negative about life in this country,
it is quite evident to me
that it will be difficult for me to work here
at this particular period of my life."
"When I left home, I thought I would focus my talent
- on other aspects of life..." - ♪♪ (playful piano playing) ♪♪
"...which I assumed would be more helpful
- and with some joy to do." - (indistinct chatter)
(glasses clinking)
Narrator: "However, what I've seen in this country
over the past three years has proved me wrong."
"Exposing the truth at whatever cost is one thing,
but having to live a lifetime
of being the chronicler of misery and injustice
- and callousness is another." - (police siren wailing)
Narrator: "And such matter is about the only assignments
magazines here want to offer me..."
(footsteps shuffling)
"...because the subject matter of my first book
happened to be centered on race issues,
the color of my skin, another incidental matter,
and the fact that I endured and escaped
the living hell that is South Africa."
- (Baby wailing) - (Kids chattering, clamoring)
Narrator: "The total man does not live one experience."
♪♪ ("Milélé" by Miriam Makeba playing) ♪♪
♪♪ (singing in foreign language) ♪♪
♪♪ (singing continues) ♪♪
♪♪ (singing fades) ♪♪
- (indistinct chatter) - (Kids laugh)
- ♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪ - (birds chirping)
Well, it all started at the end of 1956.
I had just finished my second year in high school.
And instead of going further,
I decided to leave school
because the government had deliberately lowered
the already low standard of education for Africans,
with what they call the introduction
of the Bantu Education Act.
So, I decided this was going a little bit too far and I left,
and decided to finish my schooling by correspondence.
Then of course, it took me a year...
before I could get a break...
as a darkroom assistant.
So, in about May 1958, I got my first break
through a young German photographer,
Jürgen Schadeberg, on Drum magazine.
And...
because Drum was in Johannesburg,
which is two and a half hours away from my hometown,
I, you know, had to read my lessons on the train.
- (papers shuffling) - (school bell ringing)
- (indistinct chatter) - (train tracks rattling)
- (crowd clamoring) - (bicycle bell dinging)
Ernest: Later in 1959,
I saw my first photographic book,
which is entitled "People of Moscow"
by Cartier-Bresson. So, then I decided,
"Well, this is the form I wanted my work to take."
And slowly, I started documenting,
you know, just to show what life was really like in South Africa.
- (indistinct chatter) - (crowd clamoring)
(train horn blaring)
(camera shutter clicking)
(train tracks rattling)
Ernest: I was of course aware that after finishing it,
it wouldn't be possible to remain in South Africa,
but then I... you know, I didn't care
because this is a chance you take,
and all of us have taken.
You don't want, you know, to live under the...
those miserable conditions.
I've been banned in absentia, but that doesn't matter.
It'll stand, I mean, you know, in the future, because, uh...
I'm sure South Africa will be free.
- ♪♪ (dramatic music playing) ♪♪ - Reporter 1: Demonstrations against
the South African government's strict Apartheid policies.
At Sharpeville, an industrial township,
thousands gather outside a police station
in protest against new laws requiring every African
to carry a pass at all time.
- (plane engine roaring) - (Soldiers clamoring)
(crowd screaming, clamoring)
Reporter 2: (in French)
Reporter 3: (in English) Sharpeville, police fired into a crowd
of unarmed demonstrators,
killing 69, including women and children.
Reporter 4: (in French)
Reporter 5: (in English) Worldwide protests were raised,
including a condemnation of the violence
by the United States State Department.
♪♪ (melancholic music playing) ♪♪
UN Delegate: Operative paragraph three
of Document S/5384
which reads as follows.
Three calls upon all states
to boycott all South African goods
and to refrain from exporting to South Africa
strategic materials of direct military value
is now put to the vote.
Will those in favor
of that paragraph please raise their hands?
Translator: (in French)
(council members muttering)
UN Delegate: (in English) The result of the vote
is nine in favor, none opposed,
and two abstentions.
The resolution, as amended,
has consequently been adopted by the Security Council.
♪♪ (jovial folk music playing) ♪♪
Presenter: The achievement in the towns,
new homes for over a million people in 12 years.
Budget, 120 million pounds.
- ♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪ - (bulldozer engines rumbling)
(bricks crumbling)
Narrator: One morning, in 1960,
government bulldozers came clanking down the road,
into the neighborhood where I lived.
This was Eersterust,
a freehold township ten miles past Pretoria.
Some would call it a slum, but I loved Eersterust.
I had lived most of my 21 years in that neighborhood.
(hammer clanking)
Narrator: My father, a self-taught tailor,
and my mother, a washerwoman,
had raised their six children in that house.
- (debris crashing) - (bulldozer engines rumbling)
Narrator: Once the bulldozers began their work,
they were quick about it.
Within minutes, the Black spot had been eradicated.
♪♪ (brooding music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: In South Africa,
a "Black spot" is an African township
marked for obliteration because it occupies an area
into which whites wish to expand.
- (Baby wailing) - (Kids chattering)
Narrator: The government describes relocation
as "slum clearance,"
and likes to brag about its housing developments
as a humanitarian solution to an acute housing shortage.
But the African knows, he is only exchanging his slum
that was home for the sterile prison
of a government ghetto.
♪♪ (pensive music playing) ♪♪
- (birds chirping) - (indistinct chatter)
(bicycle bell dinging)
- (indistinct chatter) - (traffic rumbling)
Narrator: The African does not also have the right
to walk the city streets of his country.
His presence in the white urban areas
is tolerated
as long as he's doing the required job.
At all other times, he is a trespasser,
unless he has his "reference book."
Without it, a Black man is nothing.
He cannot get a job, find housing, get married,
or even pick up a parcel at the post office.
A man's pass contains his life history
- in brief detail. - ♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪
Narrator: It tells his name, where he comes from,
which tribe he belongs to, the place and date of his birth,
and his father's birthplace.
The pass tells whether he has paid his taxes
and indicates his grade of employment,
"domestic servant, laborer, student, clerk, etc."
The government can pull a man's pass
at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all.
- (metal gate clanking) - Narrator: This happens
thousands of times in a day,
and still, it remains a spectacle.
♪♪ (playful jazz music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: Like in an Afrikaans Rashomon,
these characters are locked in their own narrative.
In this picture,
these three women in the background
show passive curiosity, or anxiety tinged with fear,
or downright panic.
The young boy behind seems to be reasonably reassured
that he is not to be the victim.
The Black policeman does his job by the book,
accurately and conscientiously.
There can be no objections to his routine.
He has a uniform, an income,
a place in society, more than any other fellow.
It is not clear from this photo
whether he was entrusted with a gun or not.
But gun or no gun, he remains his master's man.
And then,
there's this white-looking character
on the right.
Clearly passive, not even curious.
He has nothing at stake here. Both hands in his pocket.
He observes,
like he might observe a lizard devouring a fly.
A day like any other day.
Same incident, different realities.
- (van door opening) - ♪♪ (tense music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: Even in the court, the African must wait.
But once his turn comes, justice is swift.
(footsteps shuffling)
Narrator: The prisoners are led into the courtroom
- in small groups... - (door opening)
...and one at a time, they are called forward.
(typewriters clacking)
Narrator: One fine old British custom
survives in South Africa's penal system,
- the whip. - (whip cracking)
Narrator: In 1963,
according to records meticulously kept,
83,206 lashes were meted out to 17,404 prisoners.
- ♪♪ (pensive music playing) ♪♪ - Narrator: House of Bondage.
I feel like I put my whole life into creating that book.
I risked my life every day.
I had to learn to shoot at eye level.
(camera shutter clicking)
Narrator: I had to shoot while walking.
(camera shutter clicking)
Narrator: It's a matter of survival.
To steal every moment.
But the monster does not even need to hide.
He is on a mission.
(camera shutter clicking)
(camera reel clicking, whirring)
Narrator: I am collecting evidence,
and sometimes, the monster looks back at me.
Our policy is one,
which is called by an Afrikaans word, "Apartheid."
And I'm afraid that has been misunderstood so often.
It could just as easily
and perhaps, much better be described
as a policy of good neighborliness.
Accepting that there are differences between people.
(bell tolling)
Reporter: Outside the High Court in Pretoria,
sympathizers waited for the verdict
on Black leader Nelson Mandela.
Reporter: Mandela had declared in court,
"I planned sabotage
because all lawful methods of opposition were closed."
"I have cherished the ideal of democratic society
with equal opportunity for all."
"That is an ideal," he said,
"for which I am prepared to die."
♪♪ (somber music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: South Africa is a land of signs.
A total separation of facilities on the basis of race.
For every African, the signs, oppressive, are always there.
♪♪ (upbeat drums playing) ♪♪
Narrator: Sometimes, the sign says only, "Goods."
But if you are Black,
you know that elevator is for you too.
The depravity of Apartheid, a morbid system of separation.
- ♪♪ (pensive music playing) ♪♪ - (birds chirping)
(water flowing)
- (cash register dings) - (typewriters clacking)
(indistinct chatter)
Narrator: When I say that people can be fired,
or arrested, or abused, or whipped,
- or banished for trifles... - (handcuffs clinking)
...I'm not describing the exceptional case
for the sake of being inflammatory.
Legal indignities eventually become part
of the reality of your existence.
Onerous, but unavoidable, and in a way, tolerable,
like a bad climate.
You may escape,
but you carry your prison smell with you.
The white man's fear of Blackness...
(cigarette sizzling)
...and whatever it symbolizes for him,
goads him unmercifully.
His hatred erupts on slight provocation.
One slip, one fancied slight,
one ill-considered act or hasty word,
and he is upon you,
an enemy ablaze with rage and emboldened by his immunity.
All Blacks have seen white men and women thus.
All have been tongue-lashed.
Perhaps not quite all have been bullied,
threatened, shoved,
spat upon, slapped, or slugged.
There is no recourse.
♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪
Radio presenter: (over radio) The more you need Ajax,
the most powerful name in cleaning!
- (birds chirping) - (water rippling)
Narrator: White homes are crucibles
of racism in South Africa.
Here, the races meet face to face
- as master and servant. - ♪♪ (somber music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: All servants are Black and all masters white.
- (bats clacking) - (indistinct chatter)
Narrator: The typical pay for a live-in servant
is 15 to 20 dollars a month,
plus bed and meals.
If you don't complain, they think... you're happy.
If you do complain, they think you're ungrateful.
- (Kids wailing, giggling) - (indistinct chatter)
♪♪ (tender music playing) ♪♪
(children laughing)
Narrator: "I love this child," says the nanny,
"Though she'll grow up to treat me
just like her mother does,
now, she is innocent."
(Babies giggling)
- (Babies crying) - (indistinct chatter)
Presenter: This leaflet has been prepared
by the Non-European Affairs Department
in the hope that it will assist European employers
in their day-to-day dealings with their Bantu servants.
One of the most popular fallacies prevailing
amongst South Africans is that,
"I know the Bantu and how to treat him."
For this reason, it is earnestly hoped
that this little booklet will prove of some value
- to the public. - ♪♪ (menacing music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: The manual says to speak to the servant
- in a language they understand. - (camera shutter clicking)
Narrator: And try to remember that they are human.
- ♪♪ (whimsical music playing) ♪♪ - (dog yaps)
(dog pants, barks)
(dog whines, barks)
- ♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪ - (dog whimpers)
(indistinct chatter)
Narrator: A few white policemen
decided that the world was normal.
- Just a man and a woman. - (child yelling)
- (Resident laughing) - Narrator: More, if compatible.
Human again.
Even for a brief moment.
Does the woman have a choice?
♪♪ ("Kitty's Blues" by Dolly Rathebe playing) ♪♪
♪♪ (singing in foreign language) ♪♪
(Kids chattering)
Narrator: How do you keep your humanity
in the face of all this?
It's not a question. It's an observation.
(Kids yelling, clamoring)
Narrator: I am trying to find sense
where there ain't any.
As close to reality as possible.
Find an immediate connection to life and its contradictions.
(Kids chattering, laughing)
Narrator: A link which I can't afford to lose.
But I can't find anything that justifies all this.
(machines whirring)
Narrator: South Africa's wealth is rooted firmly
in great mineral resources.
- Diamonds, platinum, iron... - (metal clanging)
- ...copper, uranium... - (indistinct chatter)
...and above all, gold.
- (machines humming) - (tools clanking)
Narrator: These mines produce about 70 percent
of all the free world supply of gold.
The brute work is done by Africans.
Recruits from all points are brought to the tremendous
Witwatersrand Native Labor Association
main depot in Johannesburg.
Here, they are processed and assigned to the mines,
where they will work
for the duration of their contract.
- (birds chirping) - (indistinct chatter)
Narrator: One will tell you,
"I'll be going home when the drought ends."
(train tracks rattling)
Narrator: But it never does.
- And life in the mines goes on. - (train engine hissing)
♪♪ (pensive music playing) ♪♪
(stamp clacking)
- ♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪ - (bell ringing)
Narrator: The scale of payment is frugal.
For losing two legs above the knee,
and thus his livelihood,
one fellow I saw, received 1,036 dollars,
which was being paid out
at the rate of eight dollars and 40 cents a month,
and was supposed to last him for the rest of his life.
♪♪ (funky jazz music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: Your own people are nothing.
The strong father, the harboring mother,
the blood brother, nothing.
The loyalty of families, nothing.
The allegiance of tribes, nothing.
They are nothing.
You look vainly for heroes to emulate.
Many already half believe the white man's estimate
of their worthlessness.
- But inside, there is fire. - (Residents shouting)
Narrator: You rise in the morning,
filled with sour thoughts of your poverty
under the white economy...
where parks are free and benches available,
- you do not want them. - (crowd clamoring)
Narrator: Good food does not impress you.
Vacations are for fools.
You do not try too hard or expect too much of yourself,
for it is still a white man's world.
Your anger is unabated,
for each day's newly discovered small liberties...
recall restrictions in the past.
♪♪ (gloomy jazz music playing) ♪♪
- (indistinct chatter) - (passing footsteps)
(crowd applauding)
- (bell ringing) - (crowd cheering)
Narrator: And as we overcame our deficiencies,
lost our political and economic innocence,
- civilized our savage nature... - (instruments rattling)
...and worshiped the white God...
we would earn the white man's friendship
and approval.
Then would the best of us
would have a seat in his councils
and the privilege of acting like white men.
Yet, it has turned out...
that we studied the white man's language
only to learn the terms of our servitude.
Narrator: Three hundred years of white supremacy
have placed us in bondage, stripped us of dignity,
robbed us of self-esteem,
- and surrounded us with hate. - (crowd clamoring)
(gunshots firing)
The foreigners who are operating businesses,
we need to regulate them.
- (glass shattering) - (crowd shouting, clamoring)
♪♪ (pensive music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: The Native Administration Act of 1927
empowers the government, whenever it is deemed expedient
in the general public interest, to move any individual African,
or an entire tribe for that matter,
from any place within South Africa
to any other place.
No prior notice is required and no time limit set.
I was determined to visit a banishment camp
and see for myself.
I made my trip in 1964.
I picked Frenchdale, an isolated outpost
in the northern reaches of Cape Province
near the border of Botswana.
(car engine rumbling)
Narrator: An acquaintance agreed to drop me off
and return for me five days later.
♪♪ (somber music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: We drove for several hours
down the dirt road
that stretched through miles of flat nothingness.
It was arid, semi-desert country,
treeless, and barely able to support shrubs.
- (wind howling) - (crickets chirping)
Narrator: Late at night, we reached the banishment camp.
Soon, everybody in the camp came together to greet us.
They were so glad to see us, to see anyone.
♪♪ (gentle music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: Piet Mokoena,
formerly a tribal leader in the Orange Free State,
had been in Frenchdale for ten years.
Paulus Mopeli, a Basotho chief
and the grandson of the great leader Moshesh,
had been in Frenchdale for 14 years.
♪♪ (melancholic music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: Treaty, his wife, was banished three years later
and ended up in the same camp by pure coincidence.
She's still worried over the fate
of her six-year-old grandchild
who had been pushed out by police
and told to fend for himself the night she was picked up.
The first thing about the camp
that strikes the visitor is the quiet.
(wind whistling)
Narrator: There were no children's voices,
none of the murmuring sounds of daily living.
Nothing.
The banished had lost count of the days.
Monday looks like Friday in Frenchdale.
Nothing breaks the monotony.
The passage from light to darkness
- is their calendar. - (crickets chirping)
Narrator: In another day or so, my friend came back for me,
as we had arranged.
- (traffic honking) - (indistinct chatter)
Narrator: As I re-entered the restricted Black life
of Johannesburg...
I felt free.
Miriam: I ask you,
and all the leaders of the world,
would you act differently?
Would you keep silent and do nothing
if you were in our place?
Would you not resist if you were allowed no rights
in your own country
because the color of your skin
is different to that of the ruler,
and if you were punished for even asking for equality?
Mr. Chairman,
there is already too much hate in my country.
(camera shutters clicking)
Harold: The Labour Party are not in favor
of trade sanctions.
They would harm the people
we are most concerned about, the Africans,
and those white South Africans who are fighting
to maintain some standard of decency there.
- (indistinct chatter) - (water trickling)
Narrator: It was May 19th, 1966. The day I left the beast.
A group of friends came with me to the airport.
It was scary and cordial, all at once.
I was happy to leave nothing,
sad to leave everything.
- (indistinct chatter) - Narrator: At any moment,
Special Branch could interfere and arrest us all,
- and for sure... - (plane engine roaring)
...confiscate all of my hidden negatives.
♪♪ (singing in foreign language) ♪♪
♪♪ (upbeat drums playing) ♪♪
(hisses, exhales)
(chuckles)
♪♪ (continues singing, fades) ♪♪
Narrator: Leaving South Africa was a shock to my friends.
Few had dared to confront the racist administration.
Now, I am here in this beautiful world,
one we all dreamt about.
♪♪ ("Lovely Lies" by Miriam Makeba, The Manhattan Brothers playing) ♪♪
♪♪ You tell such lovely lies ♪♪
♪♪ With your two lovely eyes ♪♪
♪♪ When I leave your embrace ♪♪
♪♪ Another takes my place... ♪♪
Narrator: A world without prejudice,
without the maddening fear, without the endless persecution
and nullification of all identity.
(skipping rope swatting)
Narrator: Yes, some of us who made it into exile
thought that the world was just waiting for us,
- great artists... - (subway tracks rattling)
...but we were driven to insanity.
♪♪ (melodic saxophone playing) ♪♪
Narrator: The shock was too violent.
We were lost.
Some had been sent back into hell, battered.
That's what happened to Kippie.
Kippie couldn't bear the exile.
He went back and faced the regime in South Africa.
He refused to play for years...
and died there, poor, in 1983.
Miriam survived.
The Manhattan Brothers survived.
And Miriam sang with The Manhattan Brothers.
♪♪ ("Baby Ntsoare" by Miriam Makeba, The Manhattan Brothers playing) ♪♪
♪♪ (singing in foreign language) ♪♪
Narrator: "What does it take to survive the West?"
"How am I going to fare in this land of freedom
and democracy?"
The world loved us when we were down there,
suffering from Apartheid and all that stuff.
For some reason,
we thought they would welcome us with open arms.
But we were wrong.
♪♪ (triumphant music playing) ♪♪
Reporter: The flags of Commonwealth nations
flew over Marlborough House.
It was the start of the Commonwealth Conference.
Then came the shock news.
Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd,
South African premier, had been assassinated.
At South Africa house in London...
Narrator: I remember that day very well.
I had just left the offices of Stern magazine.
They had refused all my photos. They were not interested.
- ♪♪ (tense music playing) ♪♪ - Narrator: And then,
the wires exploded with the news of the assassination.
Stern magazine called me back.
A racist bigot died. Suddenly, you have an opening.
Suddenly, your work makes sense.
♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪
I was, of course, really naive
when I started out because I thought...
being so far away, you know, South Africa being so isolated,
that all the noise at the United Nations
was leading somewhere, in other words,
that they were going to step in and bring about some change.
But in coming away from South Africa,
I found out that South Africa
really was just one of the topics
on the United Nations agenda.
♪♪ (brooding jazz music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: House of Bondage took me ten years to make.
So much of me is in it.
All of me is in it.
It made me famous.
It made me.
But why do I feel a sense of betrayal?
The world didn't want art,
didn't want a book about just humans,
about the human condition.
It was more than a political pamphlet.
It was not conceived
as an anti-Apartheid political crusade.
It was about my life in South Africa,
and the lives of millions of others.
♪♪ (music fades) ♪♪
Leslie: I became aware of the existence
of House of Bondage in 1999, when I was on holiday.
I was walking around the streets of Cape Town.
I came across a bookstore called Clarke's Bookstore.
Walked in there.
I found a book of my...
uncle.
It's then that I learned that the book
was banned in 1967,
and it was never sold in South Africa.
♪♪ (mellow jazz music playing) ♪♪
- (traffic rumbling) - (indistinct chatter)
Narrator: Now comes the part where I tell you
what happened to my work...
during all these years I spent in the US and elsewhere.
The story of my slow disintegration
and descent into hell.
How I would transition
from famous and celebrated photographer
to homeless at the 34th street train station.
All these photos of New York...
only a few have seen them before.
For a long time, people believed they were lost,
dumped somewhere in a landfill.
Some 60,000 photos and negatives.
♪♪ (cheerful music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: I see you.
I see you every day.
Maybe others don't see you anymore.
You're too common.
Not exotic enough.
You're not even seen anymore, or even looked at.
For me, everything is new,
every smile,
every glance,
whether they look at the camera or avoid it,
and look away as if it didn't exist.
I see children.
Adults with children.
Women.
(scoffs) Lots of women.
Alone.
In groups...
of two...
or three...
or four.
Black women, white women,
women with hats, women with scarves,
women with umbrellas,
women without umbrellas,
sometimes also sitting, reading the paper.
(scoffs) Not wanting to be annoyed,
or not giving a damn.
Men too.
Men sitting as well.
Sleeping.
Men in groups, looking...
waiting.
Looking again.
And sometimes I come across faces that I know,
or moments that I've experienced.
And sometimes,
I see things that could have never existed in my world.
In South Africa...
these images are legally a crime.
Here too, not so long ago.
Yes, I photographed a lot of mixed couples.
It's not so much by fascination.
It just releases me from past pains.
In a country where everything...
anything, is a crime.
Men who love each other,
who kiss,
who look at each other,
who hold hands in the middle of the street.
Another crime in my country...
- ♪♪ (music fades) ♪♪ - ...whether white or Black.
Although two Blacks holding hands
in the streets of Johannesburg
would not attract much attention.
Black men can hold hands in public.
It is a sign of deep friendship.
♪♪ (lively country music playing) ♪♪
- (grass rustling) - (Kids chattering)
(cicadas chirping)
(birds chirping)
Narrator: "It was never going to work,"
said a journalist commenting on my photos of the South.
What did he expect?
In South Africa, I photographed my life,
my reality.
Here in the US, I am the other.
I accepted this mission with mixed feeling.
A country I did not know.
An assignment which was a false good idea.
The negro in the country.
"An outsider's point of view," it said.
Taking me totally out of my comfort zone
in a territory so ironically similar to mine.
Apartheid there, Jim Crow here.
When I think of it,
there is some perversity in this.
How is this an outsider's point of view?
I was 27 years old, for God's sake.
(indistinct TV chatter)
Narrator: What did they expect?
Michelangelo?
I don't know if this was my fight or not,
as some have argued.
They said I didn't put my passion into the assignment.
- (Kids chattering) - Narrator: Possibly.
But again, what were your expectations
from a young man who just spent all of his years
in a racist, hazardous, and mortal country?
And you just thrust him into the Deep South?
What did you imagine?
In the South, I was more scared there
than I ever was in South Africa.
In South Africa, I was afraid of being arrested.
In the South, when I was taking pictures,
I was terribly frightened of being shot.
♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪
Narrator: I was just ten months in New York.
I imprudently
told a New York Times journalist that...
"White people in the United States
are very much like whites in South Africa
in their attitudes towards Black people."
He printed it verbatim in his newspaper...
while observing that I was just given
a 6,000-dollar grant from the Ford Foundation.
I added...
"I was so very much surprised to find
bitter white racism in America,"
which he printed too.
♪♪ ("God Bless America" by Ondara playing) ♪♪
♪♪ In fifty years ♪♪
(traffic whizzing by)
♪♪ When I'm frail Barely on my feet ♪♪
♪♪ Will you be kind, oh, dear ♪♪
♪♪ Like you promised At the embassy? ♪♪
♪♪ Oh, God bless America ♪♪
♪♪ The heartache of mine ♪♪
♪♪ Oh, God bless America ♪♪
♪♪ The heartache of mine ♪♪
Narrator: This country that I've traveled across
in such a short time,
maybe it's not what I thought I would see.
♪♪ It won't matter Who your god is ♪♪
Narrator: Perhaps, it showed me very little.
♪♪ Or the tone of your skin ♪♪
Narrator: Perhaps, its essence and deepest soul
escaped me completely.
♪♪ Or who you choose To share your love with ♪♪
Narrator: I saw men in Memphis,
- protesting with dignity... - (Protesters clamoring)
...for the rights that I too had been denied.
♪♪ Oh, God bless America ♪♪
(indistinct chatter over radio)
Narrator: I crossed paths with leaders
that I had never heard of before.
♪♪ Oh, God bless America ♪♪
(indistinct chatter)
Narrator: Stokely Carmichael, who in the end,
after a decisive political career,
will be ejected from this country
to start a new life in Africa, on my continent.
Crossed visions, opposite destinies.
♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪
In '68, I went and met him in New York.
I was doing some work there, photography.
And...
- I was... somehow felt... - Interviewer: Mm-hmm.
...began to be very worried about him
because he seemed very depressed and...
and isolated.
Narrator: I saw Jürgen again. I was not well.
♪♪ (pensive jazz music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: He probably thought I was depressed, isolated.
Maybe I was.
He wanted us to bond again.
I was not so inclined.
But I went along.
Jürgen had always been good to me.
- We entered the restaurant. - (cutlery clinking)
- (indistinct chatter) - Narrator: All eyes were on me.
Not on us. On me. The Black lad.
Measuring, dissecting,
from bottom to top and back,
incredulous to my presence, my identity,
my demeanor.
In a flash,
I was back in South Africa,
- back to the dirty looks... - (whistle blowing)
...to the piercing brutality of staring...
the tranquil violence of privilege.
I was not in South Africa, but in New York.
- The year is 1968. - (police siren blaring)
Narrator: I was in the free world,
but the world is still not free.
- ♪♪ (dramatic music playing) ♪♪ - (Officers clamoring)
(indistinct chatter)
(crowd clamoring)
- (crowd clamoring) - (Officers shouting)
(siren wailing)
(supporters chanting in Czech)
Narrator: My book is banned in South Africa.
I'm not surprised, but it still hurts.
No one at home will see my work.
♪♪ (music fades) ♪♪
Narrator: I am homesick,
and I can't return.
♪♪ (gloomy jazz music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: Some of my fellow white American photographers
claimed that my work in America was lacking edge.
What is the object of their comparison?
What do they know about my reality,
my urgency?
The price you pay for exile is supposedly living safer.
I can only photograph my own experiences.
South Africa is my frame of reference.
My frame of life.
What are you actually blaming me for?
That I turned my camera on you and saw nothing?
♪♪ (tense music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: I have an explorer's gaze.
- Explorer in a distant land. - (indistinct chatter)
(water rippling)
Narrator: A land I vaguely dreamt of.
A land that promised milk and honey...
- (fountain sputtering) - ...in multiple forms.
(Kids laughing, chattering)
Narrator: There are these photos
where we do not know where we are.
♪♪ (music fades) ♪♪
Narrator: It could be Johannesburg, Soweto,
or the suburbs of Pretoria.
- These same faces... - ♪♪ (drum beating) ♪♪
...this familiarity,
the same gleam in the eyes challenging the photographer.
Here...
there,
I am trying to capture moments of reality,
finding the fractures, the essence,
the nature of human lives.
♪♪ (upbeat jazz music playing) ♪♪
(Kids laughing, screaming)
(Kids chattering)
Narrator: These are not answers. They are questions.
An America that was sold to me.
I don't judge, I observe.
Sometimes amazed, other times appalled.
♪♪ (mellow jazz music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: I applied for a new passport.
One to go home.
The weight of isolation.
(cart wheels rattling)
Narrator: No family, no real friends.
No support structure you can trust.
Friends coming and going.
Each one more or less as disheveled as you are.
No remedy to despair.
Literally eating you away.
Leslie: He used to make reverse calls,
and most of the time, he wanted to speak to me
because he wanted me to come and visit him in New York.
But unfortunately, I couldn't do that
because my mother was not happy about that.
She said that I'm not going to come back
like my uncle.
♪♪ (exciting jazz music playing) ♪♪
♪♪ (music fades) ♪♪
Leslie: He decided to go to Sweden,
I believe, around 1968.
He thought maybe if he goes to Sweden,
he might find a different place to America.
But unfortunately, there were very few
Black people in Sweden.
He was not even allowed
into some of the public spaces, like restaurants,
because he was Black.
♪♪ (pensive jazz music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: Looking for new places,
I was able to secure short-term visas
to England, Denmark, and Sweden.
That's how I found Ingrid on the way.
Ingrid Wigh, and her sister, Catarina
I lived some time with them.
Locked in that flat outside Stockholm,
we didn't know what to do with ourselves.
Today, Ingrid is 85 years old.
She does not remember much of these endless afternoons.
"My memory fails me," she says.
Leslie: Fortunate for him, he met Rune Hassner
and they became good friends, and he introduced him
to Tiofoto agency, and then he became
a member there, and they decided to help him
with his body of work.
He has actually spent in a year,
I would say, three months in Sweden
from 1968 until 1972.
And thereafter, he stopped traveling to Sweden
until 1979,
and he went there for about a week.
And that was the last time he visited Sweden.
What is happening outside South Africa
is as important as what might be happening
within South Africa itself.
And therefore, what we are asking
the world to do
is not to solve our problems for us,
but to assist us solve those problems.
Because the worst of all horrors in the world
is to live forever
as a slave, as a hated, despised subhuman.
Narrator: "22nd November, 1971. To Miss Dolly A. McPherson
at the Institute of International Education."
"This is to inform you that the first half
of my travel and study award is now finished."
(traffic rumbling)
Narrator: "I would therefore like to request
from the Ford Foundation and extension,
so that I can complete the second half
of my project."
- (rain pattering) - ♪♪ (somber music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: "On 14th November, 1972,
as you may recall, when the last grant
was made to Mr. Cole, it was anticipated
that a subsequent award would be authorized
for a 12-month period."
"But Miss McPherson,
who administered the earlier awards to Mr. Cole,
has recently left the Institute.
Furthermore, there is no evidence in the file
that the recipient ever submitted a single picture
in exchange for the allocated money."
♪♪ (pensive jazz music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: Harlem requires patience.
Everybody's putting on a front.
Acting important and suspicious.
And I don't blame them.
My soul is of two minds, torn and battered.
This city is hard to keep up with.
It hustles for your total attention,
and it's driving me crazy.
Yes, a lot of people thought
I'd stop photographing in all those years,
that fame had crushed me,
that I'd lost my way
in this new jungle that was the modern West.
- (indistinct chatter) - (cutlery clinking)
Narrator: Yet, I never stopped photographing
for a single moment.
(bell dinging)
Narrator: I photographed light American stuff
and heavy American stuff.
I don't show new material for the sake of showing it.
I want the viewer to walk away with a message...
(crowd cheering, applauding)
...not just a head full of images.
♪♪ (mellow jazz music playing) ♪♪
- ♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪ - (traffic whizzing by)
Narrator: I called Mother today.
(indistinct chatter)
Narrator: Not much to say.
We are living in two different worlds.
I will send some money soon.
I'm homesick...
and I can't return.
♪♪ (pensive jazz music playing) ♪♪
- (traffic rumbling) - (police siren wailing)
(indistinct chatter)
Narrator: "January 1973."
♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪
Narrator: "A preliminary approval
for a 6,000-dollar grant to Ernest Cole
to start the second half of his project,
and a waiving of the overspend have been allocated."
"The only minor difficulty is that this new payment
would have to wait for the new tax year."
I must leave this room.
And find another good Samaritan.
I need shelter for a few days.
More would be preferable.
Announcer: (over PA) This is the 2nd Avenue bound E.
(subway tracks rattling)
Narrator: I found some respite at Riverside Church Dormitory.
That's where I eat, sleep, rest.
Taking it a day at a time.
A home far away from home,
where school children are killed by the police.
- (gunshots firing) - (crowd clamoring)
(Officers shouting)
(Protesters clamoring)
Narrator: I saw a psychiatrist today
at the Harlem Hospital.
Well, was kind of forced to,
in order to keep my Social Security checks.
So many questions.
So many cadavers.
The doctor thinks I might be paranoid. (scoffs)
I certainly have good reasons to be.
Reporter: (in French)
(traffic rumbling)
Narrator: (in English) New York, summer of 1977.
Standing at the window, I can barely see the sky.
Neither sunset, nor sunrise.
It is a lie to put things in the frame.
All photographs are lies.
- (indistinct chatter) - (police siren wailing)
Narrator: Blackout in the city.
There is this YMCA on 34th.
I used to pass by it so many times, years ago.
(traffic honking)
- Narrator: Now, I live there. - (firetruck siren wailing)
Narrator: Scary to be in a YMCA room these days.
- Today's meal, Indian lentils. - (lively chatter)
Narrator: A tin of tomato soup.
A boiled frankfurter, late at night, if I'm lucky.
Am I a traitor to my country?
That's what the state radio says in South Africa.
♪♪ (gloomy jazz music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: Today, I am not in the mood to talk.
A Soviet surveillance satellite
detects South Africa's nuclear test
and alerts the United States.
President Carter
asks for less consumption of oil.
Steve Biko is arrested for breaking a ban order.
He died under torture.
What is political?
What do they want from me?
(crowd chanting indistinctly)
We should not mourn the death of Steve Biko
We must plan to act to punish the culprits,
to destroy the Apartheid regime
and liberate the patriots from its clutches.
(Kids laughing, chattering)
Narrator: It's been a while since I took any picture.
My cameras are lost,
sold, forgotten somewhere.
I miss the warmth of a love.
♪♪ (uplifting music playing) ♪♪
(indistinct chatter)
- ♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪ - (subway tracks rattling)
Leslie: I believe Ernest started losing ground
with his work during the '80s.
He stopped photographing.
He became homeless.
His career fizzled out, and his photograph...
his pictures rather, were completely forgotten.
Narrator: Received a letter from my mother.
Left it unopened in my pocket...
- (bicycle bell ringing) - ...for months.
♪♪ (somber jazz music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: I'm homesick.
And I can't return.
My passport is denied.
I can never go home again.
But I remember,
so vividly, the market on Wanderer Street.
(indistinct chatter)
Narrator: (inhales) I remember two young girls
walking home to Soweto...
as if the world was still in order.
I stopped to talk to them.
One in particular, a smile to die for.
Everything could be so simple.
(traffic whizzing by)
- ♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪ - (subway tracks rattling)
Narrator: Yes, there were these rumors
that I was on drugs.
I never drank, never smoked,
never indulged in drugs,
even though I had enough reasons
- to do any or all of it. - (match flicking, sizzling)
(syringe clattering)
Narrator: "May 15th, 1991."
"Mr. John Hillelson, The John Hillelson Agency."
"Dear Mr. Hillelson,
Ernest always led me to believe he had negatives in Sweden."
"What he had in the United States,
as far as I know,
he lost irretrievably when he left his belongings
in a storeroom in a Manhattan rooming house
without claiming them for more than a year."
"They were then discarded by the rooming house
in 1977."
"I know because I went there with Ernest in the vain effort
to reclaim the stuff."
"I'm sorry I can't be more helpful."
"Sincerely, Joseph Lelyveld, managing editor,
The New York Times."
♪♪ (intriguing music playing) ♪♪
Leslie: I received an email dated the fifth of July, 2016.
Subject, "Urgent, can we meet?"
The email further said that before the meeting
they would like to have the following information.
Names of family members that were alive
when Ernest Cole died,
including their identification numbers,
as well as their home addresses.
I was a bit suspicious as to why, you know.
- as to why, you know. - ♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪
What I did was I, you know, at first,
you know, decided that I'm not going to respond.
But after processing the content of the email...
took me about two or three days, and then I decided,
"Let me respond."
At that stage, the advocate,
Ulf Bergquist, responded to my email.
by saying that...
he has been appointed
by the district court of Stockholm
to act as an administrator
because they have found...
material belonging to Ernest Cole
in a bank safe in Sweden.
♪♪ (intriguing music playing) ♪♪
Leslie: I received a call from Sweden
suggesting that we should come and collect the material
- in Sweden. - ♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪
Leslie: Then I accepted the invitation from the advocate
and he arranged tickets for us, myself and my son, Gontse.
I was not happy when I saw his initial itinerary.
I said, "No, perhaps, maybe we should extend
the number of days
that, you know, we should spend in Sweden."
So that I could have the opportunity
to ask questions.
"What really happened to Ernest Cole's material?"
"Why is it in the bank?"
"Who was paying?"
"And then for how many years was the material
in the bank," you know, so that, you know,
this could... should not be part of dustbin of history.
He addressed me like a schoolboy and then he then said,
"You will arrive in the morning
and then I will ensure that you receive the material
from my office, and then you will travel back
to South Africa the same evening."
I became more and more suspicious.
They took us to a meeting office...
(elevator dinging)
...and we sat there in the meeting office,
and one of the ladies went out and brought back
the first safety deposit box, put it on the table.
Man: We're going to let you guys open them.
- ♪♪ (intriguing music playing) ♪♪ - (indistinct chatter)
Is there a way to open this?
- Woman: Yeah. - Ulf Bergquist: No.
(group laughing)
- Yes, we have scissors. - Oh, okay.
- (speaks indistinctly) - So it's there. Thank you.
(chuckles)
So, it's the normal way of opening.
- There we are, huh? - Woman: Okay.
- Man: Perfect. - Voilà!
(group chuckling)
(exclaims) I have to be very careful, huh?
Ulf: Yeah.
Woman: Should I open the second one
- or you want to? - Man: Yes, please.
- Man: Huh? - Leslie: Yeah.
- Leslie: Wow! - (indistinct chatter)
Leslie: The files of...
my uncle's South African negatives.
nicely, you know, organized
in beautiful files made in Sweden,
marked, you know, the years and the place
when they were taken and so forth.
When they brought the third box,
also fell open lots of Ernest Cole research material,
paper clips,
magazines,
his notes on House of Bondage and so forth.
I couldn't really believe what I'd found.
Shortly after being excited
to see what we found, and then we decided
now maybe it's a perfect moment to start asking questions.
The answer was unfortunately disappointing
because all they could say was that...
there is absolutely no record who deposited...
the safety deposit... the material in the bank.
And also, there is no record
of anyone doing any payments
for them to keep the information in the bank.
I couldn't even believe, you know...
A bank in Sweden?
No record?
And they handed over this material to us
without signing anything?
It was something very, very, very strange to me.
♪♪ (somber jazz music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: Winter of 1982.
(truck beeping)
Narrator: My crises are getting worse by the day
and more burdensome.
I met a friend on Broadway and 113th Street.
He introduced me to his Indian wife.
She is beautiful and smart.
Such a lucky fellow.
I live with Feni now, in the same apartment.
He is working on his defining sculpture.
History, he calls it.
We do not speak much,
but we understand each other's torments
in this freezing town.
Feni's work has been banned in South Africa,
like mine,
and like Nat Nakasa's writings a few years back.
Nat was around our age.
He left South Africa because he did not want to,
as he said, perish in his own bitterness.
♪♪ (tense music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: One day in July 1965,
he threw himself from the seventh floor
of a building in New York.
- He was 28 years old. - ♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪
Narrator: "I want to write about people, not enemies,"
- he used to say. - (indistinct chatter)
(car engine rumbling)
Narrator: Exile is destroying us,
one by one.
♪♪ (melancholic music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: When the Apartheid regime fell,
Feni decided to go home.
The day before flying back,
he wanted to buy a few records to bring home.
He had a massive heart attack in the store
and died there.
Ellington was playing on the loudspeakers.
♪♪ ("African Flower" by Duke Ellington playing) ♪♪
Narrator: I walk and I walk and I walk through the city.
If I stop walking, I will just die.
Maybe I'm bitter like they all say,
but nothing new
that others have not lived through before me.
(sirens wailing in distance)
Narrator: I am bitter.
I try to protect myself from the noise, from the hype,
from the bloody hell that my country has become,
while the world is still finding excuses.
♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪
(in French)
Reporter: (in English) British Prime Minister
whose unbending opposition
to sanctions against South Africa,
is threatening to break apart the Commonwealth.
I have not taken... I've not made any changes
in my own position on South Africa.
Well, let me tell you why we believe
Mrs. Thatcher is right.
The primary victims of an economic boycott
of South Africa would be the very people
we seek to help.
De Klerk: When I was a young man
of 21 and 25,
why did I support separate development?
Soon after I entered politics,
and in my years as a backbencher already,
I came to the realization, "It's not working."
And especially since the early '80s,
I became convinced
that where we stand is morally indefensible,
and that Apartheid was wrong.
(Residents chanting in foreign language)
Narrator: (in English) History is a strange thing.
It is amazing how people's discourse changes
within just a few years.
A comfortable position to be in,
I would say even a privilege,
to just acknowledge that you were wrong
with hardly any consequences whatsoever.
You will just go on and enjoy your loot.
(birds chirping)
(rain pattering)
Narrator: I did contemplate suicide,
not just once.
I reviewed time and again
all possible scenarios for my death.
At home,
people were disappearing every day,
kidnapped in the night or in plain daylight.
Bodies would resurface mutilated,
disfigured, unrecognizable,
in some dumps or in car trunks.
I did contemplate suicide.
Not just once.
- (indistinct chatter) - (Kids laughing)
♪♪ (brooding music playing) ♪♪
Gerrie: They would kidnap or abduct middle of the night,
kick down doors, take the individual they want,
take him back to the complex
and then interrogate him up to the third degree.
Interviewer: What do you mean by third degree?
Well, we made use of... (hesitates)
...half drownings, electric shocks,
tubing, favorite term,
that's where you step somebody's face into...
the inner of a car tire and basically suffocate him.
Alex: You have told us
today, that you were tortured many times
in many different places.
What actually did they do to you?
(speaking in native language)
Translator: "During the torturing,
I always..."
(speaking in native language)
Translator: "I was always suffocated with a mask,
and there was this helicopter training."
(speaking in native language)
Translator: "And a stick was put inside your knees
and you had to stretch your knees."
"During that period, you were suffocated."
(speaking in native language)
It's fine, don't worry about it.
(sobs)
(breathes heavily)
(indistinct chatter)
Alex: That's all.
Interviewer: How many people have you killed
as a security policeman?
Well...
As an individual, it's hard to say how many,
but collectively, we killed between 30, 35.
Interviewer: Why did you kill these people?
It was instructions from the head office.
It was instructions from my immediate commanders.
Ashley: Do you remember saying to me that
you are able to treat me like an animal
or like a human being,
and that how you treated me depended on whether...
I cooperated or not?
Jeffrey: I can't remember it correctly, sir,
but I would concede, I may have said it.
Can I then also just ask if you remember that
while I was laying on the ground, that somebody...
inserted a metal rod into my anus and shocked me?
What actually led to that, I cannot say,
except that I concede the method of detention
was...
a Draconian... law
instituted by the then Nationalist Government, sir.
♪♪ (melancholic music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: Roaming for days, for months,
in this temple for hurried travelers,
vaguely monitoring streams of bodies
going somewhere.
The new rumor was that I had become a vagrant,
a bag person in New York. Maybe the rumors were right.
Sometimes, people would recognize me.
"Look, the great Ernest Cole," they say to their friends.
They shake my hand. They praise my work.
Tell me about their admiration.
I usually don't talk much.
Sometimes they come back the next day,
bringing new friends, wanting to help.
But my torments are not curable.
This nagging feeling of rootlessness.
(camera shutter clicking)
♪♪ (mellow jazz music playing) ♪♪
(camera shutter clicking)
Narrator: It's been eight years since I touched a camera.
Eight long years.
I feel like an old man.
I am an old man.
My friend, the great jazz player and composer, Abdullah Ibrahim,
told me about a Magnum photographer
who wanted to meet me.
Rashid Lombard was his name.
Rashid Lombard took these pictures.
(camera shutter clicking)
Narrator: I took one of his cameras in my hands.
It was cold.
"Can I take a picture?" I asked.
- "Yes," he said. - ♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪
Narrator: "Do you mind sitting there?" I asked.
I took just one frame.
- Only one. - (camera shutter clicking)
Narrator: That's all I could.
- ♪♪ (brooding music playing) ♪♪ - (birds chirping)
Narrator: You might still want to know how my negatives
and my personal archives got into a Swedish bank vault.
Who put them there?
Who paid for the deposit?
Since when?
But you know what? I don't really care anymore.
Whatever happened, happened.
And it definitely was not right.
Who ordered, omitted, hid, swapped, covered up,
silenced anything, will still have to answer
to their own conscience.
♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪
Narrator: Today, what counts
is that all my work is finally home,
where it belongs.
Let us never break faith with our people or our land,
with our martyrs who have died for us,
or with our heroes who live for us.
- Amandla! - Supporters: Awethu!
- ♪♪ (pensive music playing) ♪♪ - (birds chirping)
Narrator: New York is a soulless city.
No one looks at the sky here.
Someone urgently needs to watch the sky.
Maybe I should.
I'll watch over the sunset.
- I'll watch over the sunrise... - (indistinct chatter)
...for all the people.
♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪
Narrator: "New York, January 1990."
"Dear Mrs. Cole, I'm calling you to let you know
that your son, Ernest, is not well."
"His doctors think that it would be a good time
to come and be with him."
"He has not long to live."
Nelson Mandela is to be set free at one o'clock tomorrow.
South Africa's president, De Klerk, hopes it will create
a positive, peaceful climate for negotiations
on a new South Africa.
(sirens wailing in distance)
Narrator: "It's terminal," Dr. Rafii tells me.
Pancreatic cancer.
A few weeks, tops.
That's it.
I wish I could die in my country.
At the consulate,
they said I was no longer a South African citizen.
(crowd clamoring, echoing)
Narrator: Mother flew all the way from South Africa
to see me die.
At first, standing in my room...
she didn't say a word.
Then...
very softly, she put her hand behind my neck,
as if feeling something.
(sighs)
"He is dying," she said.
Mother stayed until the end.
She looked at me as I was gasping into death.
She stayed there in the room...
until I died.
♪♪ ("The Funeral" by George Fenton playing) ♪♪
(crowd cheering)
Reporter: There's Mr. Mandela, Mr. Nelson Mandela,
a free man taking his first steps
into a new South Africa.
(choir singing)
Reporter: This is Winnie Mandela next to him,
- waving to the crowds. - (crowd clamoring)
♪♪ (song continues) ♪♪
(crowd cheering)
♪♪ (song fades) ♪♪
Narrator: There were cries and speeches.
There were ministers at my funeral,
artists,
important people.
After the ceremony, they all gathered.
People came from all over.
They brought cooked African foods.
"I will not bury him here," said Mother.
So, they cremated my body.
♪♪ (gloomy jazz music playing) ♪♪
Narrator: She took the ashes on her lap, on the airplane,
all the way to Mamelodi Cemetery.
(birds chirping)
It'll stand, I mean, you know, in the future because, uh...
I'm sure South Africa will be free.
- Amandla! - Crowd: Awethu!
- Nelson: Free Africa! - (crowd cheering)
(Nelson speaking indistinctly, echoing)
♪♪ (uplifting jazz music playing) ♪♪
(birds chirping)
Narrator: The last photos I took...
lost souls.
Long ago, detached from everything.
Empty, useless bodies.
My ultimate photos.
An absurd catchphrase...
but so fitting. (chuckles softly)
I still have some humor left.
One last look.
Yes.
I do see you.
♪♪ (lively jazz music playing) ♪♪
♪♪ (pensive jazz music playing) ♪♪
♪♪ (music concludes) ♪♪