Cry Freedom John Briley

The author of the book ist John Briley. He is an American journalist and writer. At present he lives in Spain.

The story plays in November 1975 in the south-east of South Africa in the city East London. In this city Donald Woods is an editor of the Daily Dispatch. One morning he gets news of a police raid in the black township Crossroads which lies in Cape Town in the south-west of South Africa. To this news he also gets photos of the raid and he desides to print them although the government doesn?t allow to print such photos. Woods doesn?t believe the demand of the black people but he is trained as a lawyer and doesn?t like police brutality against black people.

So he also writes an editorial about a black, young man who is shown on a picture on a photo and underneath the picture stands the name Biko. Some days later Woods meets Stephan Biko in an old church were he wants to make a centre for black people.

He listens to Biko?s opinion and Biko also shows Woods a clinic for black people.

In the clinic is Doctor Mamphela Ramphele working. She is a black young woman who told Woods the address of Biko. Biko invites Woods to come and see how black people in South Africa live. They go there in an old black taxi which is only for black people.

In the black township they eat with a black family and Biko tells Woods about the history how the white came to South Africa and how the black people got their bad situation which they have now.

Six weeks later Woods gives two friends of Biko a job in his newspaper. The one is Tenjy Mtintso and the other is Mapetla Mohapi. Mapetla takes Woods to a footballmatch of the black. Instead of the match Biko helds a speach. After the match Biko is caught by the police because an informer of the government had told the police about the speach. In the police office Biko gets hit by Captain De Wet. After the fight between Biko and De Wet two policemen throw Biko out of the office. Two weeks later Biko is a main witness for the defence of two student organizations who arranged two years before a large meeting in support of the new government in Mozambique. Woods prints the words of Biko although it is against the law. In this night Captain De Wet and two other policemen smash all things of value in the church where Biko wants to make a centre for black people.

Donald Woods cannot print this in his newspaper because the witness is a black man called Dilima and if Woods prints his name, Dilima would not survive until the end of the week. So Woods flies to the Minister of Police and speaks with him about the incident. The minister declares him that he will pursues that matter because he doesn?t want that such sort of things happen. Sunday afternoon two policemen come and want to know the name of the witness from Woods. Woods explains them that he was by the Minister and he cannot say the name but the two answer that they have order from the top. Woods is not impressed by these and sends them away without ...