South African photojournalist Peter Magubane, who documented decades of bloodshed throughout the apartheid era, including the 1976 Soweto student revolt is dead.
He was aged 91 years.
Nelson Mandela appointed Magubane as his official photographer in 1990, a position he held until his elevation to the presidency four years later. The spearhead against apartheid was Nelson Mandela.
He captured one of his most well-known images in 1956, showing a young white girl seated on a “Europeans Only” bench with her black maid positioned on the other side of the seat behind her.
No cause of death was given, but the SACEF journalists’ association said “he passed on peacefully surrounded by his family”.
Magubane worked in the photography lab of the black urban culture magazine Drum before moving behind the camera, where he quickly focused on documenting the harsh reality of apartheid, and key moments in the struggle for equality.
In 1969, he was detained while reporting rallies in front of Winnie Mandela’s and other activists’ prison.
He was imprisoned and spent 586 days in solitary confinement before being released with a five-year ban on photography.
Magubane was caught again in 1971 and jailed for several months before continuing to work while under police monitoring.
During the Soweto uprising of 1976 he captured some of the most striking images of the student revolt and gained widespread notoriety.
“South Africa has lost a freedom fighter, a masterful storyteller and lensman… Peter Magubane fearlessly documented apartheid’s injustices,” Culture Minister Zizi Kodwa wrote on social media.
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