Mary Benson (campaigner)

Dorothy Mary Benson[1]
Born (1919-12-08)8 December 1919[2]
Pretoria, South Africa[1]
Died (2000-06-19)19 June 2000[1]
London, United Kingdom
Occupation Writer[1]
Language English[1]
Subjects Apartheid, Internal resistance to apartheid, African National Congress, Nelson Mandela, Albert Lutuli, Athol Fugard, Barney Simon

Mary Benson (8 December 1919 – 19 June 2000)[3][4] was a South African civil rights campaigner and author.[5]

Early life

Born in 1919 in Pretoria,[4] Benson served in the South African Women's Army during World War II.[5] After the war, she was secretary to film director David Lean.[3][5]

Activism and writing

Benson became acquainted with the author Alan Paton, and read his novel Cry, the beloved country (1948), whose main theme was racial discrimination in South Africa.[5] This affected her greatly, and she became a campaigner for the rights of black people there.[4][6]

She worked with Michael Scott (who, in 1946, was the first white man to be jailed for resisting South Africa's racial laws),[7] becoming his secretary in 1950.[8] With Scott, Benson helped to found the African Bureau.[5]

In 1957, Benson was appointed secretary to the Treason Trial Defence Fund.[8] In 1961, Benson took on another secretarial role, moving to Natal to assist Chief Albert Lutuli when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.[1]

Through all this work, Benson became familiar with the African National Congress (ANC). She assisted Nelson Mandela's escape from South Africa in 1962,[8] and interviewed several prominent figures in the ANC, including Walter Sisulu and James Calata.[9] Based upon these experiences, she wrote the first general history of the ANC: The African Patriots (Faber & Faber, London, 1964).[9]

She testified to the United Nations Committee on Apartheid in 1963, and was the first South African to do so.[6] She was placed under house arrest and "banned" in 1966.[8] She subsequently left the country and lived in exile, settling in London, England.[4][1]

Benson's biography of Nelson Mandela, Nelson Mandela: the Man and the Movement (1986), was the second biography of Nelson Mandela to be written.[10] It was banned in apartheid South African upon its publication.[4]

Later life and death

Benson was close friends with the playwright Athol Fugard. She edited his Notebooks 1960-1977 (Faber and Faber, 1983) and wrote Athol Fugard and Barney Simon: Bare Stage, a Few Props, Great Theater (Ravan Press, 1997).[4][11][12]

She appeared as a "castaway" on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 16 February 1997.[6]

A few months prior to Benson's death, Nelson Mandela visited her at her flat in London.[1][13]

Benson died on 19 June 2000.[4][5] Her papers, including correspondence with Semane Molotlegi and those relating to her biography of Tshekedi Khama, are archived in the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Oxford.[5] Other papers, including material relating to her biography of Nelson Mandela and correspondence with fellow anti-apartheid activists, forms part of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies archive collections held at Senate House Library.[14]

Publications

  • The Tragedy of Apartheid. Christian Action. 1958. [15]
  • The Badge of Slavery (The pass laws of South Africa). Christian Action. 1960. [16]
  • Tshekedi Khama. Faber and Faber. 1960. [17]
  • Chief Albert Lutuli of South Africa. Oxford University Press. 1963. [18]
  • African Patriots. The story of the African National Congress of South Africa. Faber and Faber. 1963. [9]
  • South Africa: The Struggle for a Birthright. Penguin, Harmondsworth. 1966. [9]
  • Nelson Mandela: The man and the movement. W.W. Norton & Co. 1986. ISBN 978-0393022964. [19]
  • A Far Cry: The Making of a South African. Viking, London. 1989. [9]
  • Athol Fugard and Barney Simon: bare stage, a few props, great theatre. Ravan Press, Randburg, South Africa. 1997. [12]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Freda Troup; Ross Devenish. "Mary Benson | World news | The Guardian". Web.archive.org. Archived from the original on 24 April 2016. Retrieved 2016-10-22.
  2. ↑ "Mary Benson", ESAT.
  3. 1 2 Sarah Lyall (2000-06-22). "Mary Benson 80 Who Wrote of South Africa's Struggle". The New York Times. Retrieved 2016-10-22.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Mary Benson; Anti-Apartheid Activist, Nelson Mandela Biographer". Los Angeles Times. 2000-06-23. Retrieved 2016-10-22.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Mary Benson Papers". University of Oxford. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
  6. 1 2 3 "Desert Island Discs - Castaway : Mary Benson". BBC Online. BBC. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
  7. ↑ "Scott, Michael, South Africa, Anglican". Dacb.org. Archived from the original on 7 August 2014. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
  8. 1 2 3 4 David Clover (2013-12-16). "No Easy Walk to Freedom: Nelson Mandela in the Archives". Senate House Library. Retrieved 2016-10-22.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 "The ANC's 100 years: Some recent work on its history in historiographical context". Scielo.org.za. 2011-11-29. Retrieved 2016-10-22.
  10. ↑ David James Smith (2010). Young Mandela. Hachette. p. 380. Retrieved 2016-10-22.
  11. ↑ "Athol Fugard Notebooks 1960-1977". WorldCat.org. 1983. Retrieved 2016-10-22.
  12. 1 2 "Athol Fugard and Barney Simon: bare stage, a few props, great theatre". WorldCat.org. 1997. Retrieved 2016-10-22.
  13. ↑ "Mary Benson". The Telegraph. 2000-06-23. Retrieved 2016-10-22.
  14. ↑ "Mary Benson Papers". Senate House Library. Retrieved 19 May 2016.
  15. ↑ "The Tragedy of Apartheid". WorldCat.org. 1958. Retrieved 2016-10-22.
  16. ↑ "The Badge of Slavery (The pass laws of South Africa)". WorldCat.org. 1960. Retrieved 2016-10-22.
  17. ↑ "Tshekedi Khama". WorldCat.org. 1960. Retrieved 2016-10-22.
  18. ↑ "Chief Albert Lutuli of South Africa". WorldCat.org. 1963. Retrieved 2016-10-22.
  19. ↑ "Nelson Mandela: The man and the movement". WorldCat.org. 1986. Retrieved 2016-10-22.
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