Crossing the Line: A Year in the Land of Apartheid

In 1980 a young white Californian landed a job teaching in a high school of "colored" students on the Cape Flats, outside Cape Town, in South Africa. So began William Finnegan's odyssey of discovery as he crossed the South African color line and encountered at first hand the daily nightmare of life under apartheid.

On the first day, Finnegan is put on the spot by a politically astute older student who asks "Sir" what exactly he is doing in South Africa, anyway. Some of his pupils amuse themselves by "playing the fool" with him, until Finnegan catches on the age-old games forced by South African blacks when dealing with whites. We feel affection for these children and are sympathetic when they join a boycott that grows into a massive protest against apartheid in education.