Tribute page – Peter Magubane

Dr Peter Magubane

(1932 – 2024)

Legendary recorder of South African history

Honorary membership of PSSA in 2000 was among the numerous accolades earned by the legendary photojournalist Dr Peter Magubane, who succumbed to cancer on January 1, 2024. He was almost 92 years old.

PSSA bestowed Honorary Life membership on him at the 2000 PSSA congress in Johannesburg, where he was also a speaker. The Royal Photographic Society in the UK subsequently awarded him Honorary Fellowship in 2008. Previously, in 1997 he had received a Fellowship from the Tom Hopkinson School of Journalism and Cultural Studies at the University of Wales.

Peter Magubane (front row third from the right) at the 2000 PSSA Congress. Lying in front is Barrie Wilkins, PSSA president at the time, with future PSSA presidents Jill Sneesby and Sadie Glibberey seated to Magubane’s right. Behind Jill is Alfred Khumalo, who was also awarded Hon PSSA at the congress.

The many prestigious awards Dr Magubane received for his work as a photojournalist bear testimony to his high photographic, as well as ethical, standards. Among them is a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Press Photographers’ Association (NPPA), the Robert Capa Gold Medal (1985), the American National Professional Photographers Association Humanistic Award (1986) in recognition of one of several incidents in which he put his camera aside and intervened to help prevent people from being killed.

This was followed by the Special Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism (1992), Martin Luther King award (1995), Lifetime Achievement Award from the Mother Jones Foundation and Leica Cameras (1997), the International Center of Photography’s Cornell Capa Infinity Award (2010), the Nat Nakasa Award for Media Integrity (2015) and the Order of Luthuli in silver (2017).

Magubane holds honorary doctorates from five universities, namely UNISA (2003), Fort Hare (2006), Tshwane University of Technology (2006), Rhodes University (2006) and Columbia College (Chicago).

He was appointed Nelson Mandela’s official photographer soon after he was released from prison in 1990 and was therefore able to document the history-making events of the early Madiba-era. In 1999 he was awarded the Order of Meritorious Service Class II by President Nelson Mandela, which Magubane considered one of his most valued honours.

His legacy is an archive of exceptional photographs capturing South African history during the turbulent years of the previous century. But, his fame came at a cost. His photographic recording of the resistance against Apartheid resulted in four arrests, cost him 586 days in solitary confinement and being banned from working as a photographer for five years. In 1976 his home was burnt down and he was shot 17 times when attending the funeral of a student activist in Natalspruit in 1985.

The honours bestowed on him were a long way from the young Peter Magubane’s humble beginnings. He was born on January 18^th, 1932, in the Johannesburg suburb Vrededorp (now Pageview). His father was a fruit vendor. He attended high school in Sophiatown, but in 1955 his family was forcibly removed to Soweto.

In 1954 young Peter decided he wanted to work for Drum magazine after reading a copy of the magazine, which he believed authentically portrayed the lives of urban black people. He joined the magazine as a driver and messenger and was soon given a position as a darkroom assistant. Under the guidance of Drum’s famous chief photographer and picture editor, Jürgen Schadeberg, he began to work as a photographer.

His first major assignment was to cover the Congress of the People in Kliptown in 1955, when the Freedom Charter was adopted. The following year he covered the 20 000 strong women’s march to the Union Buildings to protest against the pass law – some of these photos were published in the book Women of South Africa: Their Fight for Freedom, published in 1993.

In 1957 Drum photographers formed the Progressive Photographic Society. They organised the first non-racial salon the following year, which Magubane won.

As a photographer for Drum, Magubane covered most of the high profile political events – often surreptitiously hiding his camera in a loaf of bread or milk carton, although his films were sometimes confiscated and exposed to light. He also befriended the black political leaders when covering the Treason Trial 1956 and 1961, in which 156 political leaders, including Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, were tried for high treason. In 1960 some of Magubane’s iconic photographs taken at the Sharpeville shootings were published in Life magazine, bringing the event to world attention. He also covered the Rivonia Trial in 1963, where Nelson Mandela and seven others received life sentences in 1964.

Photographs he took on 16 June 1976, the start of the student uprising, were published as a book, Soweto 1976: The Fruit of Fear. This was one of the 20 books featuring his photographs that were published. One of them, Black As I Am, featured poetry by Zindzi Mandela, the daughter of Nelson and Winnie Mandela. In 2016 the 40^thAnniversary edition of his book on the June 16 uprising was launched at Museum Africa in Johannesburg.

He resigned from Drum in 1963 to work as a freelance photographer abroad. Dr Magubane held the second exhibition of his work at the London School of Printing in 1964 – his first exhibition was held in South Africa in 1961. He returned to South Africa in 1966, where he worked for the Rand Daily Mail until 1980.

He was arrested in June1969 while photographing protesters outside the jail where Winnie Mandela and others were held. He was held in solitary confinement for 586 days and when he was released, he was served with a five year banning order, which meant that he could not work for any publishing company and was forced to resign from the Rand Daily Mail. He was arrested again in 1971 and spent 98 more days in solitary confinement and was then jailed for six months for breaking his banning order. When the banning order expired in 1975, he resumed work for the Rand Daily Mail. In August of that year, Magubane and other black journalists were detained for 123 days.

From 1978 Magubane also worked as a correspondent for Time Magazine until he left for New York in 1980, where he worked for publications like National Geographic, Life, New York Times, Washington Post, Paris Match, and Sports Illustrated – for the latter he photographed a series about the young South African runner Zola Budd. He later freelanced for the United High Commission for Refugees and UNICEF.

In 2018 his work was exhibited alongside that of another renowned South African photographer, David Goldblatt, in a major retrospective, On Common Ground. He twice exhibited his most iconic images of Pres. Mandela – the first at a United Nations gathering in Poland, opened by former Polish President Lech Walesa. The second exhibition was held at the Nelson Mandela Gateway to Robben Island in 2018, where he gifted these images to the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

During a TV interview to commemorate his 90^th birthday he explained that in his later years he began capturing “the beauty side of South Africa”. He then focused on capturing images of our cultural legacy and produced several books portraying the diversity of our country.

Dr Magubane’s memorial service, organised by the Gauteng Provincial Government on January 10, 2024, was addressed by Pres. Cyril Ramaphosa and attended by many cabinet members, and prominent political and cultural personalities. The many tributes from across the world acknowledged the vital role his photographs played in documenting our past.

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