Richard Rive: Non-racialism in a life of writing and of sport

Abstract

This article pieces together segments of the life and thought of writer, intellectual, sportsman and sport activist Richard Rive (1930–1989) in order to trace the genesis and promotion of his ideas of non-racialism, locating them in both his intensely personal experiences of childhood and youth, and in the formative socio-political, educational and sporting contexts of his time. It argues that formative to the man were his experiences as a child growing up under segregation and Apartheid in District Six, as well as the ideological influences of the intellectuals in the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM) who were his teachers, and later colleagues and friends. The article, part of a larger project to write a biography of Rive, delineates and analyses his role in organised non-racial school sport from the 1950s to his death in 1989, and in the national non-racial body, the South African Council on Sport (SACOS).

Keywords: Richard Rive; Non-racialism; Non-Racial Sport; SACOS; Biography; School sport.