When She Was White: The True Story of a Family Divided By Race

When She Was White is a powerful and poignant true story that sheds light on the arbitrary and unjust nature of apartheid South Africa. This gripping narrative follows Sandra Laing, a young girl born in 1955 to a pro-apartheid Afrikaner couple. Initially raised as a white child, Sandras life took a drastic turn when her dark skin and frizzy hair led to her persecution in a whites-only boarding school. Despite her parents insistence that she was their biological child, the community labeled her a coloured and eventually, the police forcibly reclassified her.

As Sandra grows older, she elopes with a black man, which leads to her estrangement from her family and the privileged world of the whites. She chooses to begin anew in a poor, all-black township, where life is a constant struggle against poverty, illness, and a legal system designed to oppress her.

Judith Stone, a veteran journalist, chronicles Sandras journey and her own experience uncovering the mysteries of Sandra's past. This book provides a unique and heartbreaking perspective on apartheid and its lingering impact, highlighting Sandras resilience and survival.

🌍 Key Themes: Apartheid, race, identity, South Africa, personal survival, injustice, family, and the complexities of race in history.

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