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The Guardian
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
The Voting Rights Act is facing the biggest threats in its 60 years
Facing images of violent white mobs defending racial segregation, the condemnation of the world and of its own citizens, Congress in 1965 passed the Voting Rights Act, a law meant to end the hypocrisy of a democratic country that denied Black people the power of their vote. Sixty years later, race remains at the center of American politics. Cases before the US supreme court, and a platoon of Texas legislators fleeing the state to prevent redistricting, demonstrate how the Voting Rights Act – and its erosion – remains on the frontline of the political battlefield. 'Democracy is at stake,' said Todd Cox, associate director-counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Even as voting rights advocates use the act to win additional congressional representation in Alabama and press cases in Louisiana and North Carolina, a conservative supreme court makes gains precarious, he said. 'We wouldn't be under such a threat if we weren't doing so well in making sure our communities were engaged, that they were turning out and that their rights were protected,' Cox said. 'This is a cyclical part of history, that when we see some success in advancing rights, there's always backlash.' Veterans of the struggle for civil rights view passage of the act as a revolutionary, historical demarcation point equal to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Confederate general Robert E Lee's surrender at Appomattox or the establishment of women's suffrage. Enforcement of the Voting Rights Act fundamentally rewrote politics in America. 'I know I stand on the shoulders of folks … who fought and died in some cases,' Cox said. Though constitutional amendments passed after the American civil war ended slavery and commanded racial equality before the law, American lawmakers regularly found ways to keep Black citizens from exercising political power. Literacy tests, poll taxes, separate ballot boxes for Black and white voters, white-only primary elections, purges of Black voters from the rolls and discriminatory district lines rigged elections for white voters in the US's Jim Crow era. Each time a court struck down a state law or demanded the end of a discriminatory practice, obstructionist local lawmakers – mostly but not exclusively in southern states – would quickly adapt, often enacting new election changes without enough time for a court to intervene. Civil rights laws at the time held insufficient authority to stop the practice. After years of campaigns for voting rights and racial equality across the south, the civil rights struggle came to a head in March 1965 in Selma, Alabama. The death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a Baptist deacon and local voting rights activist, at the hands of state troopers led 600 people to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. State troopers attacked demonstrators with truncheons and teargas. As networks broadcast the assault, the US watched future US representative John Lewis get beaten into unconsciousness by white police officers live on national television. Support crystalized for civil and voting rights after the events of the 'Bloody Sunday' broadcast. Congress wrote the Voting Rights Act to prevent the case-by-case whack-a-mole games local lawmakers were playing with election rules. It forced jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to clear elections changes with the Department of Justice before they could go into effect. It banned literacy tests to vote and allowed challenges to district maps when those maps would not allow proportional representation for minority voters. The principles of the Voting Rights Act have shaped the way lawmakers from the halls of Congress to a city council hearing room have to respond politically to voters of color. Congress has reauthorized the Voting Rights Act four times since its enactment, each time under a Republican president. But the law's protections have suffered a death of a thousand cuts. In the Shelby County v Holder case of 2013, the US supreme court held that the data defining jurisdictions with a history of discrimination was too old to be relied upon; Congress must update it for the Voting Rights Act's pre-clearance rules in Section 5 to remain constitutional, the court ruled. Republicans in Congress have blocked legislation – the John Lewis voting rights advancement act – updating the law, effectively ending pre-clearance. 'It was a pretty significant blow to the project of ensuring voting free of racial discrimination in this country,' said Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU's voting rights project. 'I think it really accelerated in this moment the attacks on voting access across the country.' States previously restricted by pre-clearance enacted a wave of election legislation following the ruling, closing polling places, changing voter registration rules and redrawing district lines unhindered. The 5-4 decision in Rucho v Common Cause in 2019 further eroded the power of the Voting Rights Act, by explicitly permitting political gerrymandering, even as racial gerrymandering remained off-limits. The mid-decade redistricting in Texas proposed by Donald Trump presents a particularly vivid example of the consequences of an end to pre-clearance and recent supreme court decisions. Democratic state representatives have fled the state to deny Republicans a quorum to pass the redistricting legislation, which would likely grant Republicans an additional five congressional seats in Texas by concentrating some minority voters into fewer districts while diluting clusters of other voters. 'Those maps would have had to be reviewed by the federal government coming in after the fact to challenge them, and winning,' Lakin said. In 2003, the eighth circuit federal appellate court further restricted the use of the Voting Rights Act, ruling in Arkansas State Conference NAACP v Arkansas Board of Apportionment that private groups do not have a right to challenge state election laws under the act; only the Department of Justice can bring a voting rights case to court. A second eighth circuit decision extended the ban on private voting rights suits from redistricting cases to suits challenging restrictions on voter assistance. Of the 180 or so successful claims brought under the Voting Rights Act, only 15 have been brought by the Department of Justice, said Jacqueline De León, senior staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund. The Department of Justice's voting rights division used to have about 30 staff attorneys; under the Trump administration, it has lost all but two or three, she said. 'We know the Department of Justice is not going to be in the business of enforcing voting rights,' De León said. 'Right now, we don't know if there will be a future where a Voting Rights Act is available to our country. This is really a moment for concern and reflection on this anniversary.' Lakin said she expects the eighth circuit ruling to be appealed to the supreme court. Meanwhile, a case in Louisiana that has reached the US supreme court threatens the last leg standing of the Voting Rights Act. On Friday, the court signaled that it will consider the constitutionality of section 2, asking for supplemental briefs in Louisiana v Callais. The case, to be heard later this year, asks whether the state's creation of a majority-minority congressional district violates the 14th or 15th amendment to the constitution. 'I think this is, unfortunately, another opportunity for the court to continue to attack this pillar of our democracy, the Voting Rights Act,' Lakin said. In Callais, a group of 'non-African-American voters' filed suit against the state of Louisiana, arguing that lawmakers acting on the order of the federal court drew a congressional district map that unconstitutionally considered race. The Equal Protection Clause of the US constitution and the 15th amendment's guarantee that the right to vote cannot be denied because of race says that lawmakers cannot consider race predominantly over other factors when redistricting without a compelling reason. But section 2 of the Voting Rights Act requires lawmakers to consider race when it is necessary to ensure that the voting power of racial minorities has fair representation. The cases are an effort to create conflict between the Voting Rights Act and the constitution as a rationale for a conservative court to chip away, Lakin said. 'Congress can enact laws to ensure the 14th and 15th amendments are given life,' she said. 'I think that there's an attempt to create tensions around this and say that there's a disconnect with the Voting Rights Act. But as the supreme court has stated … the act is a properly, constitutionally authorized use of Congress's powers.' Such a finding would turn hard-fought civil rights law on its head. It would establish a legal basis for white voters to challenge laws meant to protect minority voters from discrimination. 'I would say it's a perversion of what the Department of Justice has symbolized, specifically what its historic role, its purpose was meant to be,' Lakin said.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
The Voting Rights Act at 60: still the frontline for democracy
Facing images of violent white mobs defending racial segregation, the condemnation of the world and of its own citizens, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, a law meant to end the hypocrisy of a democratic country that denied Black people the power of their vote. Sixty years later, race remains at the center of American politics. Cases before the US supreme court, and a platoon of Texas legislators fleeing the state to prevent redistricting, demonstrate how the Voting Rights Act – and its erosion – remains on the frontline of the political battlefield. 'Democracy is at stake,' said Todd Cox, associate director-counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Even as voting rights advocates use the act to win additional congressional representation in Alabama and press cases in Louisiana and North Carolina, a conservative supreme court makes gains precarious, he said. 'We wouldn't be under such a threat if we weren't doing so well in making sure our communities were engaged, that they were turning out and that their rights were protected,' Cox said. 'This is a cyclical part of history, that when we see some success in advancing rights, there's always backlash.' Veterans of the struggle for civil rights view passage of the act as a revolutionary, historical demarcation point equal to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Confederate general Robert E Lee's surrender at Appomattox or the establishment of women's suffrage. Enforcement of the Voting Rights Act fundamentally rewrote politics in America. 'I know I stand on the shoulders of folks … who fought and died in some cases,' Cox said. Though constitutional amendments passed after the American civil war ended slavery and commanded racial equality before the law, American lawmakers regularly found ways to keep Black citizens from exercising political power. Literacy tests, poll taxes, separate ballot boxes for Black and white voters, white-only primary elections, purges of Black voters from the rolls and discriminatory district lines rigged elections for white voters in the US's Jim Crow era. Each time a court struck down a state law or demanded the end of a discriminatory practice, obstructionist local lawmakers – mostly but not exclusively in southern states – would quickly adapt, often enacting new election changes without enough time for a court to intervene. Civil rights laws at the time held insufficient authority to stop the practice. After years of campaigns for voting rights and racial equality across the south, the civil rights struggle came to a head in March 1965 in Selma, Alabama. The death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a Baptist deacon and local voting rights activist, at the hands of state troopers led 600 people to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. State troopers attacked demonstrators with truncheons and teargas. As networks broadcast the assault, the US watched future US representative John Lewis get beaten into unconsciousness by white police officers live on national television. Support crystalized for civil and voting rights after the events of the 'Bloody Sunday' broadcast. Congress wrote the Voting Rights Act to prevent the case-by-case whack-a-mole games local lawmakers were playing with election rules. It forced jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to clear elections changes with the Department of Justice before they could go into effect. It banned literacy tests to vote and allowed challenges to district maps when those maps would not allow proportional representation for minority voters. The principles of the Voting Rights Act have shaped the way lawmakers from the halls of Congress to a city council hearing room have to respond politically to voters of color. Congress has reauthorized the Voting Rights Act four times since its enactment, each time under a Republican president. But the law's protections have suffered a death of a thousand cuts. In the Shelby County v Holder case of 2013, the US supreme court held that the data defining jurisdictions with a history of discrimination was too old to be relied upon; Congress must update it for the Voting Rights Act's pre-clearance rules in Section 5 to remain constitutional, the court ruled. Republicans in Congress have blocked legislation – the John Lewis voting rights advancement act – updating the law, effectively ending pre-clearance. 'It was a pretty significant blow to the project of ensuring voting free of racial discrimination in this country,' said Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU's voting rights project. 'I think it really accelerated in this moment the attacks on voting access across the country.' States previously restricted by pre-clearance enacted a wave of election legislation following the ruling, closing polling places, changing voter registration rules and redrawing district lines unhindered. The 5-4 decision in Rucho v Common Cause in 2019 further eroded the power of the Voting Rights Act, by explicitly permitting political gerrymandering, even as racial gerrymandering remained off-limits. The mid-decade redistricting in Texas proposed by Donald Trump presents a particularly vivid example of the consequences of an end to pre-clearance and recent supreme court decisions. Democratic state representatives have fled the state to deny Republicans a quorum to pass the redistricting legislation, which would likely grant Republicans an additional five congressional seats in Texas by concentrating some minority voters into fewer districts while diluting clusters of other voters. 'Those maps would have had to be reviewed by the federal government coming in after the fact to challenge them, and winning,' Lakin said. In 2003, the eighth circuit federal appellate court further restricted the use of the Voting Rights Act, ruling in Arkansas State Conference NAACP v Arkansas Board of Apportionment that private groups do not have a right to challenge state election laws under the act; only the Department of Justice can bring a voting rights case to court. A second eighth circuit decision extended the ban on private voting rights suits from redistricting cases to suits challenging restrictions on voter assistance. Of the 180 or so successful claims brought under the Voting Rights Act, only 15 have been brought by the Department of Justice, said Jacqueline De León, senior staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund. The Department of Justice's voting rights division used to have about 30 staff attorneys; under the Trump administration, it has lost all but two or three, she said. 'We know the Department of Justice is not going to be in the business of enforcing voting rights,' De León said. 'Right now, we don't know if there will be a future where a Voting Rights Act is available to our country. This is really a moment for concern and reflection on this anniversary.' Lakin said she expects the eighth circuit ruling to be appealed to the supreme court. Meanwhile, a case in Louisiana that has reached the US supreme court threatens the last leg standing of the Voting Rights Act. On Friday, the court signaled that it will consider the constitutionality of section 2, asking for supplemental briefs in Louisiana v Callais. The case, to be heard later this year, asks whether the state's creation of a majority-minority congressional district violates the 14th or 15th amendment to the constitution. 'I think this is, unfortunately, another opportunity for the court to continue to attack this pillar of our democracy, the Voting Rights Act,' Lakin said. In Callais, a group of 'non-African-American voters' filed suit against the state of Louisiana, arguing that lawmakers acting on the order of the federal court drew a congressional district map that unconstitutionally considered race. The Equal Protection Clause of the US constitution and the 15th amendment's guarantee that the right to vote cannot be denied because of race says that lawmakers cannot consider race predominantly over other factors when redistricting without a compelling reason. But section 2 of the Voting Rights Act requires lawmakers to consider race when it is necessary to ensure that the voting power of racial minorities has fair representation. The cases are an effort to create conflict between the Voting Rights Act and the constitution as a rationale for a conservative court to chip away, Lakin said. 'Congress can enact laws to ensure the 14th and 15th amendments are given life,' she said. 'I think that there's an attempt to create tensions around this and say that there's a disconnect with the Voting Rights Act. But as the supreme court has stated … the act is a properly, constitutionally authorized use of Congress's powers.' Such a finding would turn hard-fought civil rights law on its head. It would establish a legal basis for white voters to challenge laws meant to protect minority voters from discrimination. 'I would say it's a perversion of what the Department of Justice has symbolized, specifically what its historic role, its purpose was meant to be,' Lakin said.
The Independent
19-06-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Cradock Four: South Africa opens new inquiry into apartheid-era torture and killings
When Nombuyiselo Mhlauli was given her husband's body back for burial, he had more than 25 stab wounds in his chest and seven in his back, with a gash across his throat. His right hand was missing. Sicelo Mhlauli was one of four Black men abducted, tortured and killed 40 years ago this month by apartheid-era security forces in South Africa. No one has been held accountable for their deaths. But a new judge-led inquiry into the killings of the anti-apartheid activists who became known as the Cradock Four — and who became a rallying cry for those denied justice — opened this month. It is part of a renewed push for the truth by relatives of some of the thousands of people killed by police and others during the years of white minority rule and enforced racial segregation. Mhlauli described the state of her husband's body during testimony she gave at the start of the inquiry in the city of Gqeberha, near where the Cradock Four were abducted in June 1985. Relatives of some of the three other men also testified. Thumani Calata never got to know her father, Fort Calata, who had been a teacher. She was born two weeks after the funerals of the Cradock Four, which drew huge crowds and galvanized resistance to apartheid. 'I don't know how it feels, and I will never know how it feels, to be hugged by my dad,' Thumani Calata, now 39, told the inquiry as she wept. Two previous inquiries were held during apartheid. A two-year inquest that started in 1987 found the men were killed by unknown people. Another in 1993 said they were killed by unnamed policemen. Relatives of the Cradock Four likely will never see justice. The six former police officers directly implicated in the abductions and killings have died, the last one in 2023. None was prosecuted despite the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission identifying them and denying them amnesty in the late 1990s. That commission, set up by then-President Nelson Mandela, attempted to confront the atrocities of apartheid in the years after the system officially ended in 1994. While some killers were granted amnesty, more than 5,000 applications were refused and recommended for criminal investigation. Hardly any made it to court. Oscar van Heerden, a political analyst at the University of Johannesburg, said the bitter emotion of relatives at the Cradock Four inquiry showed wounds have not healed. 'Where it was felt that truth was not spoken and there wasn't sufficient evidence to warrant forgiveness, those were cases that were supposed to be formally charged, prosecuted and justice should have prevailed," van Heerden said. "None of that happened.' The failure by post-apartheid governments for 25 years to pursue cases is now being scrutinized. Frustrated, the families of the Cradock Four finally forced authorities to rule last year that there would be a new inquiry into the killings. They also joined with a group of relatives of other apartheid-era victims to take the South African government to court this year over the failure to investigate so many crimes. As part of the settlement in that case, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa ordered a national inquiry led by a retired judge into why apartheid-era killers were not brought to justice. The inquiry, which has not opened yet, threatens to expose further uncomfortable moments for South Africa. While the majority of victims of political violence during apartheid were Black and other people of color, some were white, and families have come together across racial lines. A group of survivors and relatives from the 1993 Highgate Hotel massacre, where unknown men opened fire in a bar full of white customers, joined with the Cradock Four families and others in the case against the government. They allege that post-apartheid authorities deliberately blocked investigations. Other inquests have been reopened, including one into the 1967 death of Albert Luthuli, who was president of the banned anti-apartheid African National Congress movement when he was hit by a train. Luthuli's death has been viewed with suspicion for more than 50 years. At the Cradock Four inquiry, which is expected to resume in October for more testimony, Howard Varney, a lawyer for the families, said this is their last chance to know the truth. The new inquiry has attempted to retrace the killings, from the moment of the men's abduction at a nighttime police roadblock to the time their bodies were discovered, burned and with signs of torture. The families also want a former military commander and ex-police officers who may have knowledge of the killings to testify. Lukhanyo Calata, the son of Fort Calata, said he accepted it was unlikely anyone would ever be prosecuted over the death of his father and his friends Mhlauli, Matthew Goniwe and Sparrow Mkonto. But he said he wants official records to finally show who killed them. ' Justice now can really only come in the form of truth,' Lukhanyo Calata told The Associated Press. 'They may not have been prosecuted, they may not have been convicted, but according to court records, this is the truth around the murders of the Cradock Four.'
Al Arabiya
19-06-2025
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
South Africa Opens a New Inquiry Into Apartheid-Era Killings Known as Cradock Four
When Nombuyiselo Mhlauli was given her husband's body back for burial, he had more than 25 stab wounds in his chest and seven in his back, with a gash across his throat. His right hand was missing. Sicelo Mhlauli was one of four Black men abducted, tortured, and killed 40 years ago this month by apartheid-era security forces in South Africa. No one has been held accountable for their deaths. But a new judge-led inquiry into the killings of the anti-apartheid activists who became known as the Cradock Four – and who became a rallying cry for those denied justice – opened this month. It is part of a renewed push for the truth by relatives of some of the thousands of people killed by police and others during the years of white minority rule and enforced racial segregation. Mhlauli described the state of her husband's body during testimony she gave at the start of the inquiry in the city of Gqeberha, near where the Cradock Four were abducted in June 1985. Relatives of some of the three other men also testified. Thumani Calata never got to know her father, Fort Calata, who had been a teacher. She was born two weeks after the funerals of the Cradock Four, which drew huge crowds and galvanized resistance to apartheid. 'I don't know how it feels, and I will never know how it feels to be hugged by my dad,' Thumani Calata, now 39, told the inquiry as she wept. Two previous inquiries were held during apartheid. A two-year inquest that started in 1987 found the men were killed by unknown people. Another in 1993 said they were killed by unnamed policemen. Police officers implicated have since died. Relatives of the Cradock Four likely will never see justice. The six former police officers directly implicated in the abductions and killings have died, the last one in 2023. None was prosecuted despite the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission identifying them and denying them amnesty in the late 1990s. That commission, set up by then-President Nelson Mandela, attempted to confront the atrocities of apartheid in the years after the system officially ended in 1994. While some killers were granted amnesty, more than 5,000 applications were refused and recommended for criminal investigation. Hardly any made it to court. Oscar van Heerden, a political analyst at the University of Johannesburg, said the bitter emotion of relatives at the Cradock Four inquiry showed wounds have not healed. 'Where it was felt that truth was not spoken and there wasn't sufficient evidence to warrant forgiveness, those were cases that were supposed to be formally charged, prosecuted, and justice should have prevailed,' van Heerden said. 'None of that happened.' The failure by post-apartheid governments for 25 years to pursue cases is now being scrutinized. Frustrated, the families of the Cradock Four finally forced authorities to rule last year that there would be a new inquiry into the killings. They also joined with a group of relatives of other apartheid-era victims to take the South African government to court this year over the failure to investigate so many crimes. As part of the settlement in that case, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa ordered a national inquiry led by a retired judge into why apartheid-era killers were not brought to justice. The inquiry, which has not opened yet, threatens to expose further uncomfortable moments for South Africa. While the majority of victims of political violence during apartheid were Black and other people of color, some were white, and families have come together across racial lines. A group of survivors and relatives from the 1993 Highgate Hotel massacre, where unknown men opened fire in a bar full of white customers, joined with the Cradock Four families and others in the case against the government. They allege that post-apartheid authorities deliberately blocked investigations. Other inquests have been reopened, including one into the 1967 death of Albert Luthuli, who was president of the banned anti-apartheid African National Congress movement when he was hit by a train. Luthuli's death has been viewed with suspicion for more than 50 years. At the Cradock Four inquiry, which is expected to resume in October for more testimony, Howard Varney, a lawyer for the families, said this is their last chance to know the truth. The new inquiry has attempted to retrace the killings from the moment of the men's abduction at a nighttime police roadblock to the time their bodies were discovered burned and with signs of torture. The families also want a former military commander and ex-police officers who may have knowledge of the killings to testify. Lukhanyo Calata, the son of Fort Calata, said he accepted it was unlikely anyone would ever be prosecuted over the death of his father and his friends Mhlauli, Matthew Goniwe, and Sparrow Mkonto. But he said he wants official records to finally show who killed them. 'Justice now can really only come in the form of truth,' Lukhanyo Calata told The Associated Press. 'They may not have been prosecuted, they may not have been convicted, but according to court records, this is the truth around the murders of the Cradock Four.'
Associated Press
19-06-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
South Africa opens a new inquiry into apartheid-era killings known as Cradock Four
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — When Nombuyiselo Mhlauli was given her husband's body back for burial, he had more than 25 stab wounds in his chest and seven in his back, with a gash across his throat. His right hand was missing. Sicelo Mhlauli was one of four Black men abducted, tortured and killed 40 years ago this month by apartheid-era security forces in South Africa. No one has been held accountable for their deaths. But a new judge-led inquiry into the killings of the anti-apartheid activists who became known as the Cradock Four — and who became a rallying cry for those denied justice — opened this month. It is part of a renewed push for the truth by relatives of some of the thousands of people killed by police and others during the years of white minority rule and enforced racial segregation. Mhlauli described the state of her husband's body during testimony she gave at the start of the inquiry in the city of Gqeberha, near where the Cradock Four were abducted in June 1985. Relatives of some of the three other men also testified. Thumani Calata never got to know her father, Fort Calata, who had been a teacher. She was born two weeks after the funerals of the Cradock Four, which drew huge crowds and galvanized resistance to apartheid. 'I don't know how it feels, and I will never know how it feels, to be hugged by my dad,' Thumani Calata, now 39, told the inquiry as she wept. Two previous inquiries were held during apartheid. A two-year inquest that started in 1987 found the men were killed by unknown people. Another in 1993 said they were killed by unnamed policemen. Police officers implicated have since died Relatives of the Cradock Four likely will never see justice. The six former police officers directly implicated in the abductions and killings have died, the last one in 2023. None was prosecuted despite the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission identifying them and denying them amnesty in the late 1990s. That commission, set up by then-President Nelson Mandela, attempted to confront the atrocities of apartheid in the years after the system officially ended in 1994. While some killers were granted amnesty, more than 5,000 applications were refused and recommended for criminal investigation. Hardly any made it to court. Oscar van Heerden, a political analyst at the University of Johannesburg, said the bitter emotion of relatives at the Cradock Four inquiry showed wounds have not healed. 'Where it was felt that truth was not spoken and there wasn't sufficient evidence to warrant forgiveness, those were cases that were supposed to be formally charged, prosecuted and justice should have prevailed,' van Heerden said. 'None of that happened.' Taking the government to court The failure by post-apartheid governments for 25 years to pursue cases is now being scrutinized. Frustrated, the families of the Cradock Four finally forced authorities to rule last year that there would be a new inquiry into the killings. They also joined with a group of relatives of other apartheid-era victims to take the South African government to court this year over the failure to investigate so many crimes. As part of the settlement in that case, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa ordered a national inquiry led by a retired judge into why apartheid-era killers were not brought to justice. The inquiry, which has not opened yet, threatens to expose further uncomfortable moments for South Africa. While the majority of victims of political violence during apartheid were Black and other people of color, some were white, and families have come together across racial lines. A group of survivors and relatives from the 1993 Highgate Hotel massacre, where unknown men opened fire in a bar full of white customers, joined with the Cradock Four families and others in the case against the government. They allege that post-apartheid authorities deliberately blocked investigations. Other inquests have been reopened, including one into the 1967 death of Albert Luthuli, who was president of the banned anti-apartheid African National Congress movement when he was hit by a train. Luthuli's death has been viewed with suspicion for more than 50 years. Last chance to know the truth At the Cradock Four inquiry, which is expected to resume in October for more testimony, Howard Varney, a lawyer for the families, said this is their last chance to know the truth. The new inquiry has attempted to retrace the killings, from the moment of the men's abduction at a nighttime police roadblock to the time their bodies were discovered, burned and with signs of torture. The families also want a former military commander and ex-police officers who may have knowledge of the killings to testify. Lukhanyo Calata, the son of Fort Calata, said he accepted it was unlikely anyone would ever be prosecuted over the death of his father and his friends Mhlauli, Matthew Goniwe and Sparrow Mkonto. But he said he wants official records to finally show who killed them. 'Justice now can really only come in the form of truth,' Lukhanyo Calata told The Associated Press. 'They may not have been prosecuted, they may not have been convicted, but according to court records, this is the truth around the murders of the Cradock Four.' ___ AP Africa news:
