Beverley Palesa Ditsie is a key South African Black lesbian activist, part of a world of queer activism during South Africa’s decade of transition from apartheid, when sexuality was crucial to recircuiting post-apartheid power and possibility. Part of the Gay and Lesbian Organization of the Witwatersrand (GLOW) which organized the continent’s first Pride March, she has stood steadfastly for Black lesbian self-determination and African queer representation.
Beverley Ditsie’s Fearless Speech enters this recent history of sexuality politics through an activist and a critical theorist in conversation. This book bends an account of Ditsie’s life and work in the critique of racial and sexual capitalism. Grounded in South Africa, the conversation is cut through with radical queer, materialist, and feminist critique in an internationalist frame.
Through this dialogic form, Beverley Ditsie emerges alongside other figures of fearless speech willing to stand for Black and African queer liberation, yet aware of pitfalls in these struggles that point to work that remains to be done. Beverley Ditsie’s Fearless Speech is a cautionary tale of hope for radical change in a world of deepening injustice and political homophobia.
