There are a number of people to whom I owe a debt of thanks and who helped in various ways throughout the writing and production process of this collection. To Ian Rijsdijk and the anonymous reviewers of the book, thank you for assisting with the selection of speeches and for leading me to discover addresses I had not thought to include, even if they didn’t all make it into the current book. And a special thanks to the reviewers for clarifying information about Oliver Tambo’s 8 January address.
Thank you also to Dr Melissa Wallace for assisting with information around South Africa’s HIV/AIDS programmes and to Lance Greyling for explaining some of the conventions of parliamentary address.
Many thanks to Gabriele Mohale from the Wits Historical Papers Research Archive and Professor Sheila Meintjes, who together helped me to locate the ‘missing’ Winnie Madikizela-Mandela speech included in the collection. Thanks also to Frances Jowell, who gave me permission to access her mother Helen Suzman’s archival collection at the University of the Witwatersrand.
I also owe thanks to Rehad Desai and Jabulani Mzozo for providing me with the full video version of Julius Malema’s speech at Marikana, without which the book would have seemed incomplete.
Lastly, I am grateful to the efficient and professional team at Penguin: to Marlene Fryer, for agreeing to publish the book in the first place. To Ryan Africa, for the inspired and classy cover design. To Rashieda Saliem, for helping with the transcription and typing up of speeches. To Bronwen Maynier, for her meticulous proofreading. To Sanet le Roux, for indexing a history that spans seventy years. And especially to Dane Wallace, for his insightful edit and remarkable error-detection skills. Thank you for your patience in the last stages of production.
Finally, thank you to Robert Plummer for undertaking the journey with me. You are the best travelling partner.
MARTHA EVANS
CAPE TOWN, OCTOBER 2017