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Life changed for Peter Magubane one day in 1954 when he picked up Drum, a South African magazine known for its reporting of the brutality behind apartheid. “They were dealing with social issues that affected black people in South Africa. I wanted to be part of that magazine,” says the now-65-year-old photographer.

Miner's Living Conditions, circa 1968 After six months of doing odd jobs for Drum, the young Magubane was given his first photography assignment. “After that I never went back. It was the beginning of good things.”

He went on to document the reality of life under apartheid with wrenching photos of seminal events in his country’s history, including the Soweto uprising in 1976 and the Sharpeville massacre of 1960. While the subjects of the photographs took to the streets, Magubane says, “I was demonstrating with my camera. I had to use it to show the South African people and the world what was going on in our country.”

Magubane’s work eventually earned him the honor of being the first black South African to win a photography prize in his country. But his photos didn’t earn him any favors from the South African police, from whom he occasionally had to hide his camera in a hollow loaf of bread or a hastily emptied milk carton — while still taking photographs. “You had to think very fast,” he says. “You had to be one up on apartheid.”

Though never convicted of a crime, Magubane endured a total of 586 days in solitary confinement, six more months in jail, occasional torture, and five years of “banning” (essentially, a total prohibition against social interaction and meaningful work).

The photojournalist now records life in post-apartheid South Africa for Time magazine, and has published 11 books. His next, The Vanishing Cultures (Cape Town: Struik Publishers), is a collection of photographs of 11 rural South African tribes and is due out in September.

“There have always been many stories, not just apartheid stories,” he says of his love of traditional South African culture. “This country is not made of violence only.”

This June, Peter Magubane will receive the 1997 Leica Lifetime Achievement Award, given jointly by the Mother Jones International Fund for Documentary Photography and the Leica Camera Group.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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