Cry Freedom

CRY FREEDOM

Cry Freedom is a story about the discrimination that the black population in South Africa had to put up with. South Africa used to be a country of black people ruled by White people. This book was written to report what was happening during those years there. It follows the lives of two good men, with a vision of the future, who knew that what was happening in their Country was wrong. And they decided to do something about it.

Al that time, the life for black people in South Africa was very difficult. They had to live away from the White people, in houses made of boxes. The police used to be ver agressive with them.  It was very unfair.

Donald Woods was the editor of a local newspaper in South Africa, “The daily dispatch”. He is the one who makes the story possible. He was a White liberal, meaning that he did not believe that black people should be allowed to vote, he accepted the law that forced black and White to live in separate towns, but he did not like police brutallity.

Steve Biko was a very clever black man. He believed in black consiousness, and he wanted equallity for all the South African population, either black or White. He was a banned person, he wasn´t allowed to meet with more than one persons at the same time, he was forbbiden to write anything, and he was always followed by two police officers wherever he went.  

When Biko and Woods met, they son became friends. They  started working together, Woods incorporated two black reporters to his team. They were supposed to report black news. But the South African government didn’t like this, so one of them was murdered. Biko was caught outside his banning area, speaking to a crowd. Then he was arrested. The police hit him hard, and when he was looking bad, the police called a doctor, who told them that they had to take him inmediatly to a hospital. They took him to a hospital that was very far away, and Biko’s head hiting the floor all the time. He couldn’t take it, and Biko died. The police reported that Biko had starved himself to death, but that wasn’t true. Woods published the pictures of Biko’s damaged body, even though this was ilegal. Woods wanted to publish a book with Biko’s story, but his friends told him that it was to dangerous to do there. He had to leave South Africa. But he didn’t make it, he was arrested at the airport, and declared a banned person.

He came home and told his wife that they had to leave South Africa, but she didn’t like that idea. But one night one of their daughter was seriuosly injured, so she agreed with Biko.

Woods had a friend who had promised to publish his book if he made it to London. But he was forbbiden to leave South Africa, so it wasn’t easy. He had the help from Bruce McCullough and Father Kani, and also from a man he met in his journal, named Tami. Thanks to their help, and a fake identification, Woods and his family could leave South Africa. When they were in the plane, Woods remebered, that Biko thought that men’s minds could be changed; but could that happen before it was to late? Many people had already died fighting for equallity in South Africa. But he succeded, he published the book, and fighted for what he believed.

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