After a life exceeding 91 years, during which he drew the world's attention through his camera lenses to the daily suffering of black people in South Africa under apartheid policies, renowned South African photographer and artist Peter Magubane took his last breath. Magubane gained fame after joining Drum magazine in 1955 as one of the few black photographers covering the era of oppression. A year later, a historic photograph he captured in a wealthy neighborhood in Johannesburg showed a white girl sitting on a long bench marked "For Europeans Only," while a black girl behind her groomed the white girl’s hair.
In the 1960s, amid the rising anti-apartheid movement, his lens recorded the arrest of Nelson Mandela and the banning of the now-ruling African National Congress party. A decade later, he won international awards for his coverage of the student uprising in Soweto. Magubane frequently faced harassment, assaults, and arrests. Starting in 1969, he was confined to solitary confinement for 586 days. However, Magubane continued to take photographs until he was appointed as Mandela's official photographer in the 1990s.
His granddaughter, Oluongeli Magubane, told Reuters, "He was a person who made significant sacrifices for the freedom we enjoy today." She added, "He was fortunate to live to see the country change for the better." Magubane was born in 1932 in the Freehood area now known as Pageview in Johannesburg and grew up in Soweto, which was once a hub for black artists but was ultimately destroyed during the apartheid regime. His daughter, Vickie, stated that he passed away peacefully around noon and would have turned 92 on January 18.
