speaking) students to critical thinking about South African politics and
society. In the late 1970s, NUSAS organized conferences on the theme "edu-
cation for an African future."44
Apartheid also brought into being a women's organization, the Black
Sash. The white, mainly English-speaking, middle-class members of the
Black Sash devised a skillful method of embarrassing Nationalist politi-
cians and attracting media attention. Wearing white dresses with black
sashes, they stood silently with heads bowed in places where politicians
were due to pass" such as the entrance to Parliament buildings, The govern-
ment banned such demonstrations in 1976, but the Black Sash remained in
existence, running officesthat gave legal advice to Africans who fell foul of
the apartheid laws.45
Authors, too, were exposing the effects of apartheid. Alan Paton, who in
1947 had written the best-selling Cry, the Beloved Country, calling for
humane race relations, published a series of pungent criticisms of apartheid
in the 1950S and 1960s. "God save us all," he wrote, "from the South
Africa of the Group Areas Act, which knows no reason, justice, or mer-
cy."46By the 1970s, such authors as Andre Brink, Nadine Gordimer, J.M.
Coetzee, and Athol Fugard were demonstrating
the destructive effects