Cradock, South Africa

The silvery windmills on the surrounding sheep farms of CRADOCK have become an unofficial symbol of the town; Xhosa hawkers (often kids) stand along the main road around the city limits, selling intricately crafted wire model windmills, their blades spinning in the breeze. Poverty has overshadowed Cradock since the Frontier Wars of the nineteenth century and the subjugation of the Xhosa people that continued right up to the 1990s. Against this history of conquest the town has provided fertile grounds for resistance: some members of the ANC were based in and around the town, and almost single-handedly kept the organization alive during the 1930s. In 1985, Cradock hit the headlines when prominent anti-apartheid activist Matthew Goniwe and three of his colleagues were brutally murdered. It was only in 1997, during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, that five Port Elizabeth security policemen were named as the perpetrators, but despite the bitterness it caused the five were granted amnesty.