This Day in History: September 25, 2004
Additional Date: September 25, 2004
Dr Allan Boesak, former anti-apartheid activist, leader of the World Alliance of Churches and patron of the now disbanded United Democratic Front (UDF), was one of the participants in the Rainbow Debate at a heritage festival held in Eersterust Township, east of Pretoria. Boesak maintained he had stopped calling or referring to himself as Coloured in 1970, but the African National Congress (ANC) has made him "Coloured" again after 1994. Various speakers at the festival, where a large part of the debate was dedicated to the Coloured people's feelings of being marginalised in the new South Africa, warned against this and said Coloureds must claim their status as the first Africans (being of Khoisan descent) and contribute to the development of a communal African and South African identity.