Icon of freedom dies
2011-05-12
A LOCAL icon of the struggle against Apartheid has died at the age of 83. Dorothy Adams was educated as a teacher at the Athlone Training College and went on to teach at Pauw Gedenk Primary School in her home town of Wellington. She had grown up in a respected and deeply religious home. Her religious convictions led her to speak out against segregation from a young age. She became actively involved in wider politics by joining the Teachers League of South Africa, the Unity Movement and the National Liberation Front. In September 1963, while teaching, Dorothy was arrested under the “90-day law” and detained at the Maitland police station. During this time she befriended another political prisoner, Albie Sachs, who later recorded their chance meeting in one of his memoirs, Jail Diary. While he was whistling Dvorak’s New World Symphony, Dorothy joined in from another cell. Here their friendship was cemented and many years later, Dorothy took the stage with him at a London theatre after a theatrical adaptation of these memoirs. On Dorothy’s release, she still refused to testify against fellow members of the Teachers League, upon which she was again arrested. In August 1964 she was given a five-year banning order confining her to Wellington, which made it impossible for her to earn a living. On her release her every move was scrutinised by the security police. She decided to leave the country, not only for her sake, but that of her family. She found refuge in England where she met and married peace campaigner Frank Williams. In 1989, based at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London, Dorothy started work on a three-year project with Sachs, researching a new constitution for South Africa. After 22 years in exile, Dorothy was overjoyed to be able to return home in 1991. She and her husband later settled in Wellington, the first mixed-race couple to live on the street that once marked the divide between white and non-white. She continued working towards peace in her home country and worked at the University of the Western Cape for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Frank died in 2006 and Dorothy moved into a nursing home in Pinelands, where she died recently. Dorothy was laid to rest in Wellington cemetery in the family grave.
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