Special Report Transcript Episode 9, Section 2, Time 01:36

Eighty year old Elias Molatseli was a school principle when he was arrested in 1978. // On that particular morning the police came in and they wanted my identity document I gave them. And they started searching the house, and they found a book called Up from Slavery that was written by T Washington who was a principle at the Tuskegee College. They took that book and they said, get out of this house, because you are a terrorist. You are teaching at Kroondraai School. What are you teaching those children? Are you teaching them terrorism? And they came out with something from that room and they said look at this. They had Steve Biko’s portrait. His hands were handcuffed and they showed me the picture. They said look at this, it’s from inside your house. They said those were the three items they found unacceptable in my house: Steve Biko’s photo, the letter that I wrote to the secretary of Bantu education complaining. I was asking him to intervene, I was asking him to see how the parents were involved, because they build a school but I was chased away because I was a Sotho person and I was told to go to the other Sotho speaking people. Now those three things led to the police thinking that I was a criminal.

Notes: TRC testimony: Elias Molatseli