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9/20/2010
The 11th Annual Steve Biko Memorial Lecture
September 9, 2010
The University of Cape Town
Cape Town, South Africa
Copyright ©2010 by Alice Walker
I have spent most of the early morning thinking of what I want to say to you: there is so much. First of all I want to say that I am in your country, have been drawn to your country, the beautiful South Africa, which for some years in our own struggle we referred to as Azania, because of a deep love of you, of your heroines and heroes, of your long, long struggle toward positive humanity for yourselves and for all oppressed people on the planet. You have been a great inspiration to all people on earth who are interested in and devoted to Justice, Peace and Happiness.
I was asked to provide a title for my talk and this is what came to me: Coming to See You Since I was Five Years Old: a Poet's Connection to the South African Soul. The reason I have been coming your way for over sixty years is because when I was five years old my eldest sister Mamie Lee Walker, all of seventeen years old herself, came home from college her freshman year and taught my eleven year old sister and myself your National Anthem, Nkosi Sikeleli'Afrika. (Sung). We were the only children of any color who were taught this song in our tiny, totally segregated town in the deep South of the United States, in Georgia; the somber, intense passion and dignity of the melody entered my heart. It has lodged there for the last sixty years.
The 11th Annual Steve Biko Memorial Lecture September 9, 2010 The University of Cape Town Cape Town, South Africa Copyright ©2010 by Alice ...