Allan Hendrickse

Who was Allan Hendrickse?

Helenard Joe Hendrickse, popularly known as Allan Hendrickse, was a South African politician, Congregationalist minister, and teacher. He participated in an act of defiance by swimming at a South African beach reserved for whites only. He was born in Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape and died of a heart attack at Port Elizabeth's airport. He studied at Fort Hare University in the Eastern Cape where he met Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and Robert Mugabe. He married in 1957 and was to have four children.

In 1969, he became one of the founders of the Labour Party, which represented Coloured people on the Coloured Peoples' Representative Council. He helped open "Coloured" schools to students of all races. After 1984, the Labour Party dominated the House of Representatives, one of the houses in South Africa's Tricameral Parliament, and Hendrickse served in P. W. Botha's cabinet. Hendrickse and Labour drew the ire of the United Democratic Front and African National Congress for this collaboration with apartheid; Hendrickse defended himself on the grounds that he would oppose apartheid from within.