Legendary South African photographer Peter Magubane dies
Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) – Peter Magubane, the anti-apartheid activist and renowned photographer, died on Monday at the age of 91.
He was born in Pageview, a Johannesburg suburb, and began taking photographs using a Kodak Brownie box camera as a schoolboy.
Magubane started working at Drum magazine as a driver in the 1950s. He was given a photography assignment under the mentorship of Jürgen Schadeberg, the chief photographer and became the first black South African to win "Press Photo of the Year" in 1958.
He covered the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960 and also Nelson Mandela's treason trial in 1964. In 1969, he was sent to photograph a demonstration outside Winnie Mandela's jail cell. He was arrested, interrogated and placed in solitary confinement. The charges were dropped in 1970, but he was banned from working for five years. In 1971 he was imprisoned again and spent 98 days in solitary confinement.
Following his release, Mugabane was assigned to cover the 1976 Soweto riots and he was arrested again. The following year he won an excellence in journalism award presented by Walter Cronkite.
He worked on assignments for Time magazine and the United Nations.
In 1985, he was hospitalised with gunwounds received when he was caught in police crossfire at a funeral near Johannesburg.
In the 1990s, he was appointed as Nelson Mandela's official photographer. He was awarded the South African Order of Meritorious Service Silver Class II, bestowed upon him by Mandela.
The South African National Editors’ Forum hailed Magubane as a giant in the field of photojournalism who will forever be remembered as one of the courageous journalists who defiantly opposed the apartheid regime in South Africa.
-0- PANA CU/MA 2Jan2024
