(VOVWORLD) - Peter Magubane, a South African photojournalist who chronicled decades of violence during the country's apartheid era died Monday aged 91, his family announced.
 Anti-apartheid photojournalist Peter Magubane passes away at the age of 91. (Photo: news24.com) |
Magubane worked in the photography lab of the black urban culture magazine Drum before moving behind the camera, where he quickly focused on documenting the harsh reality of apartheid, and key moments in the struggle for equality.
In 1969 he was arrested while covering protests in front of the prison where Winnie Mandela and other activists were being held. He was imprisoned and spent 586 days in solitary confinement, and upon release ordered to stop his photography activities for five years.
Magubane was again arrested in 1971 and held for several months, and then continued to work while trying to evade police surveillance.
Magubane also became the official photographer of Nelson Mandela when the anti-apartheid leader was released from prison in 1990 and until he became president four years later.
One of his most iconic images, from 1956, captured a young white girl sitting on a bench marked "Europeans Only", her black maid sitting behind her on the other side of the bench.