See the Noose, Say their Names: Phyllis Naidoo’s Waiting to Die in Pretoria (1990)

Abstract

This essay reads Phyllis Naidoo's 1990 Waiting to Die in Pretoria as a radical requiem for Black death under apartheid. Naidoo builds her case against the death penalty through a roll of Black death row inmates that anticipates contemporary racial crises with an uncanny feel for the trauma of white supremacist violence.

Keywords:

• Phyllis Naidoo; anti-apartheid; Black death; death penalty; Black Consciousness; political solidarity

Acknowledgments

With loving thanks to Paul Arroyo, Teresa Barnes, Jenny Davis, Jacob Dlamini, Behrooz Ghamari, and Renisa Mawani.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Antoinette Burton

Antoinette Burton is Professor of History and Swanlund Endowed Chair at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she directs the Humanities Research Institute. She is currently working on Gender History: A Very Short Introduction for Oxford University Press.