Preserving 490 voices before they are lost to time

In 1994, South Africa made history. Twenty million citizens cast their votes in the country’s first democratic elections, choosing a Parliament that would both form a new government and write the nation’s new constitution. 490 members of the Constitutional Assembly, drawn from every corner of the nation, had two years to build the foundation of South Africa’s democracy.

The decisions they made, and the stories behind them, would shape the rights, freedoms, and democratic future of every young South African born since.

A story worth telling

Thirty years later, the story of how they achieved this incredible feat is in danger of being lost. The recent passing of former ministers Pravin Gordhan, Tito Mboweni, and Membathisi Mdladlana was a reminder of how little time remains to capture these testimonies in the people’s own words.

WeThePeopleSA was founded on a simple conviction: that the Constitution belongs to all South Africans, not just to lawyers and politicians. Their 490 Oral History Project is racing to interview every surviving member of the Constitutional Assembly, preserving firsthand accounts of the negotiations, disagreements, breakthroughs, and moments of extraordinary public participation that produced the document.

It is the kind of history that textbooks cannot capture on their own. These are personal stories, full of human detail, and they will not exist forever. The team has already spoken with over 80 people across the country who have agreed to share their stories and, where possible, their personal archives.

“Understanding our civic history is how democracy stays alive. When young South Africans know the story of how their Constitution was written, they understand their rights, their power, and their place in that democracy,” said Shingi Bimha, Head of Partnerships and Programmes, Anglo American Foundation.

Why this matters for a young nation

South Africa’s median age is 28. Most people alive today were children or not yet born when the Constitutional Assembly did its work. They did not sit in the public hearings, did not read the two million submissions that ordinary citizens sent in, and did not watch the debates unfold. For them, the Constitution can feel like something that simply exists, rather than something that was built, argued over, and chosen.

That is what WeThePeopleSA is working to change. The interviews will be turned into content, so that the story of the Constitution reaches young people in the formats they actually engage with.