[Retired scholar Robert D. Vassen talks about his upbringing in South Africa and his involvement in African National Congress].

Robert D. Vassen, retired Associate Director of the English Language Center at Michigan State University is interviewed by John Metzler, African Studies Center Outreach Coordinator and Peter Limb, Michigan State University Librarian and Africana Bibliographer. Vassen discusses growing up in South Africa during the late 1940's and 1950's as an Indian and living in the Indian community of Fordsburg, near Johannesburg. Vassen says he was active in the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress and in 1962, joined the illegal military wing of the African National Congress (ANC). Forced into exile in London in 1964, Vassen says he continued to be an active member of the ANC and edited "Letters From Robben Island: a selection of Ahmed Kathrada's prison correspondence, 1964-1989."

Interviewed on Jan. 7, 2005.