Durban - Renowned journalist GR Naidoo, was a newshound who was committed to reporting on South Africa’s freedom struggle and who, himself, lived the non-racialism he worked to help create. His youngest daughter Chandra Naidu, is working on an exhibition that will help preserve and celebrate Naidoo’s work.
Naidoo was the first black editor-in-chief at Drum magazine and he went on to start up the East-Africa edition of Drum in Nairobi in the 50s. He later went on to become editor at the Post and then he moved to the Rand Daily Mail, where he spent a few years before moving back to Durban where he was senior reporter with the Sunday Times.
“My father’s work appeared at the Guggenheim Museum in Washington. In 2009 the Mandela Foundation agreed to have an exhibition of my father’s work. But I have struggled to find a home for it right here in Durban and my hope and my dream is to create a platform through some generous-spirited-open-minded-people who want to preserve South African history for what it is,” said Naidu.
President Nelson Mandela had his last dinner of freedom with Naidoo and close comrades at his home in Durban before he was arrested on August 5, 1962 in Howick. Mandela was sentenced to five years for inciting workers to strike and for leaving the country without a permit. He was sent to Robben Island in May 1963 and shortly thereafter returned to Pretoria to stand trial for sabotage in what became known as the Rivonia Trial.