(AGENPARL) - Roma, 25 Luglio 2023 - (AGENPARL) – mar 25 luglio 2023 MEDIA INVITATION FROM WITS UNIVERSITY
ATTENTION: SPORTS EDITORS AND REPORTERS
DATE: 25 JULY 2023
REFLECTING ON NON-RACIAL SPORT – THE SOUTH AFRICAN COUNCIL ON SPORT AT 50
The South African Council on Sport (SACOS), the undisputed sport-wing of the liberation movement, would have been 50 years in 2023. At its height in the 1980s, close to one million people participated in numerous sports codes under its banner, from primary and high schools to communities in urban and rural areas. Operating under the slogan No Normal Sport in an Abnormal Society!, the Council played a pivotal role in the international campaign to boycott apartheid.
To mark the 50th anniversary of the SACOS, the Remember SACOS Committee and the Wits History Workshop will host a colloquium on 28-29 July 2023 at Wits University to reflect on the contribution of SACOS, the intersection of sport and politics and the pursuit of non-racial sport.
The media is invited to attend.
The programme includes panel discussions, research papers, book launches and exhibitions. Some of the topics focus on school sport under apartheid, Women in SACOS and opportunities for sport development in the current dispensation. [View the progamme](https://www.wits.ac.za/media/wits-university/news-and-events/images/documents/2023/View%20the%20programme.pdf) featuring a range of inputs from scholars to NGOs and practitioners.
Friday evening, 28 July, will see the launch of three books including Tennis, Apartheid and Social Justice by Saleem Badat, Master of Turbulence: Morgan Naidoo and the Struggle for Non-Racial Sport by Viroshen Chetty (with Rajen Naidoo), and Non-Racial School Chess: 1970s to 1994 by Ashley Schuller and Lyndon Bouah.
Professor Noor Nieftagodien from the Wits [History Workshop](https://www.wits.ac.za/history-workshop/) says that “the history of SACOS is largely unknown and has received only scant attention in the production of liberation histories and in the crafting of truly non-racial sport programmes in South Africa. The colloquium will highlight new and existing research and publications, and hopefully inspire further work to be undertaken on this neglected history.â€
