Followup would you be even granted a visa? If so could you visit sun city?

Followup: is there any evidence of someone doing this?

I have somewhat related answer this question. I'm an undergrad history student and took a course on South African history taught by Dr Marcus Fillipello at UW: Milwaukee. I had a paper assignment that I did on Apartheid and Surfing during the 60's and 70's.

There is a relatively well known incident in which legendary surfer Eddie Aikau, a native Hawaiian, was attending the Gunston 500 contest in Durban South Africa in 1972 after having won entry and hotel stay at the Malibu Hotel, and was refused service at the hotel for having dark skin. In Coleman's biography on Eddie's life, he notes that some of Eddie's white Hawaiian friends brushed off the incident, something that was deeply upsetting to Eddie himself.

At this time I don't have confirmation of if he was allowed to participate in the event itself or not given that the beaches in South Africa were segregated. Surfing joined the sports boycott of South Africa in the 1985 when world champion, Australian Tom Carrol announced he would not compete in the South African leg of the World Tour because of the nations Apartheid Policies, not explicitly because surfers of color on the world tour (Hawaiians) were receiving poor treatment, but because of the larger boycott surrounding apartheid.

So while it is not exactly clear the status of African Americans in South Africa as tourists, we can extrapolate that if Eddie, a dark skinned Hawaiian (technically American) was refused hotel service that it is likely that an African American would receive similar treatment during their time.

Unfortunately I have no source on this other than remembering it being covered in lecture from that course (History 392, Spring 2016, Marcus Fillipello) but it was mentioned that foreign dignitaries from other African nations were given special treatment during diplomatic visits to the nation, underlying the absurdity of Apartheid Rule.

I missed out on a golden opportunity to ask a few questions related to this issue recently when South African surfing legend Shaun Tompson visited the local surf shop in Milwaukee and went surfing on some awful mush with a few guys I knew. Tompsons father Ernie took Eddie in after he was turned away from his hotel and I really wanted to ask Shaun if I could interview him about the event and a few other questions related to race and surfing in South Africa. Alas, that little bit of surfing history may never see further exploration.

Sources:

Stuart Holmes Coleman, Eddie Would Go: The Story of Eddie Aikau, Hawaiian Hero and Pioneer Big Wave Surfer (New York: St Martin’s Griffin, 2001) 109

Nick Carroll, “South Africa: To Be or Not to Be?” Tracks (June 1985) 12

http://encyclopediaofsurfing.com/entries/race-racism-and-surfing

Hi folks!

I've unfortunately just had to clean up an enormous slew of /r/Askreddit style comments - everything from movie quotes (yeah, we've all seen Lethal Weapon) to random observations and personal anecdotes. And one virulent racist, but what can you do.

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