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University of Bradford >> Library >> Special Collections >> Laredo South African Archive
This Archive documents the career of a University of Bradford lecturer, whose life was changed by his opposition to the apartheid regime in his native South Africa.
John Laredo was born in Pretoria in 1932. After studying at Stellenbosch University and King's College, Cambridge, he carried out anthropological fieldwork among Zulu-speaking Nguni in the Shongweni, Ndwedwe and Inanda areas in 1959 and 1960. While writing his report and teaching at the University of Natal, he registered for a Ph.D. with the University of Cape Town. In 1962 he was appointed lecturer in charge of Social Anthropology at the Port Elizabeth branch of Rhodes University.
John Laredo was involved locally with the African National Congress, but also had been part of a movement in Transvaal to sabotage government installations. In August 1964 he was arrested and detained under the "90-day" detention clause and was then jailed for five years after refusing to give evidence against his comrades. He applied for permission to work on his almost-finished thesis, but permission was refused, despite further requests from fellow-academics and Helen Suzman M.P. On his release from prison in 1969, John Laredo was the subject of a banning order under the Suppression of Communism Act, which not only prevented him from publishing or submitting his thesis while he was in South Africa, but also prevented any South African university from accepting it.
From 1970-1971, he was resident visiting fellow at King's College, Cambridge. In 1972, he joined the School of Social Sciences at the University of Bradford. After 20 years lecturing at Bradford, he was forced to retire in 1993 by serious illness. John Laredo was a strong supporter of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, of which he was secretary through the 1980s. In 1992, he was able to visit a post-apartheid South Africa. He died in October 2000.
The Archive was donated to the University of Bradford in June 2002. It includes
Further information about the Archive:
For further information or to use this Archive, please contact the Special Collections staff.
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