“I sometimes remind myself of how blessed I am to be where I am today. Not that many years ago, the sports governing body of my own country of South Africa wouldn’t have allowed me to run in the Olympics because I am Black. I was born in 1991, just a few years before the first democratic elections in 1994 would finally begin to unravel that insidious and dehumanizing system of government that defined people and even ripped families apart based on the color of their skin and other physical features. My parents, older siblings, and extended family lived through this time. They were not allowed to travel or live where they wanted; some were forcibly relocated. Black people didn’t have access to higher education. And unlike me, so many great Black athletes never got a chance. There is still so much trauma in our communities from the brutality of apartheid. I carry that history of discrimination and resistance and the yearning for freedom within me; they are there in everything I do.

I wanted us to be normal. An impossible ask when the people who raised me were so shaped by an abnormal system. They carried survivors’ guilt and memories no one should ever have. Sometimes my mum talked to me about the children she had taught before she had left Soweto. The ones who marched on the streets on June 16. She told me about Hector and I knew that he was 12 years old like me. I had seen the photo of him dying. I knew, too, that my mum was on Vilakazi Street that day, along with the kids who called her ‘Teacher’ and ‘Ma’am’.

Chapter 3: A Coming Storm: The Days Before

“That same afternoon, Super passed by his uncle Elliot Shabangu’s house in Dube. Elliot was a trade unionist who’d long been run-ins with the authorities. It was seeing him being harassed by police that first drew Super to the Struggle. Elliot was a mentor to his nephew and to Zweli, who had tagged along. As they visit drew to a close, they walked down the path that led to the wire gate and stood chatting. When Elliot mentioned that he might see his nephew the following day for a family-related matter, Super turned to his uncle and said, ‘No, tomorrow we’ll be out protesting.

Chapter 8: What Apartheid Could Not Penetrate: Family

Chapter 9: Leave no Mark: Escape

“The story my parents want to tell is different from the one I want to write.

My dad wants to recount the political history of South Africa and the Movement. He wants to tell me about the comrade-uncles in Lusaka and London who I knew as a toddler and young child, explaining how they – and he – fitted into the broader trajectory of the ANC. My mum wants to tell the story of the people who shaped her activism, like Joe Gqabi, who guided her as she told him about the discontent at Phefeni, and her friend Baba who turned up with his Beetle on June 16. The story she wants to tell is one of shared effort and history.

The story I want to tell is of my gentle yet courageous dad, and how the path he chose cost him dearly. It is the story of my beautiful mum, barely in her 20s, with bravery I cannot imagine ever possessing. It is of both of them in love, idealistic and determined. It is of my feisty, fearless and fun-loving aunts and uncles, and my grandparents, the quiet revolutionaries.