THE STORY OF CHAPTER 4 IS A SEGMENT OF MY EFFORT to explore groups of people self-identified by race and occupational status as well as variations in their experience of apartheid and post-apartheid history. By ‘social groups’ I have in mind the following: (1) the urban black working class, who were torn from their rural roots by the pull of city life and by the cataclysm of World War II; (2) the calm and dignified Africans of the countryside (the rural poor), who carried out their work within the boundaries and frames of dominant discourses; and (3) the African upper stratum, who were distinguished by their bilingual literacy, moderation, frugality, and rationality (the African upper stratum had an agenda which implied the need for political change; this is the class that challenged dominant systems of black representation, which were what apartheid history had imposed on them for almost seven decades).

The importance of knowledge as regards to variations in the black experience of apartheid and post-apartheid history lies in what it tells us about the historical context in which the invention of Mandela's legend and charisma happened – it also provides important insight into the historical context in which Mbeki's narrative of ‘Victorian Prince’ was replicated.