Eyewitness to History

Writing the previous post reminded me of when my daughters were studying South African apartheid in history class a year or two ago. During my brief career as a newspaper reporter in the mid-80s, I had the opportunity to cover several protests and sit-ins aimed at convincing a nearby university to divest from South African business interests. So when my kids asked me what I knew about apartheid, I was very excited to dig through my archives and pull out the newspaper stories I'd written on the subject to share with them.

I was slightly less excited when my girls got extra credit in their class for bringing in these "primary historical documents from the era." I felt like I'd drafted the freakin' Magna Carta. "Eyewitness to History" indeed.