“Where Do Coloureds Come From?” asks Drum, Africa's leading magazine.
Then it answers its own question: “coloureds” come from some of South Africa's oldest, most
respected white families. “It is fairly safe to say,'' added Drum
, “that where any family has been in this country for
more than 200 years, the chance of having no infusion of colour is
remote.” To Johannesburg's Boer burghers, propping the apartheid barriers raised
against South Africa's 9,000,000 blacks and coloreds, the suggestion
of blood ties was intolerable. But then, intolerable was what the
magazine meant it to be. Beamed straight at the heart of Africa's black
man, Drum in eight years has grown from a scarcely audible protest into
a commanding voice. Each month 240,000 copies are distributed across
Africa—more than any other magazine, black or white. By Mammy-wagon
bus and human shoulder, it reaches into eight African countries to be snapped up even by illiterates,
who pay educated friends to read each issue aloud. West African
government officials sometimes call to complain that their
complimentary copies have not yet arrived. In the Nigerian capital of
Lagos, 19,000 copies go on sale at 4 a.m.; by sundown the same day all
have been sold. Lively & Dedicated. Even by Africa's standards, Drum is an improbable
magazine. It began its real growth in 1951, when it was taken over by a
onetime Royal Air
Force pilot, London-born James R. A. Bailey, son of the late Sir Abe
Bailey, South African financier. Jim Bailey made Drum a lively blend of
chocolate cheesecake, sport, controversy, crusades, sensational
features, tips to Africa's millions of pennywhistle gamblers, and
inscrutable advice to the lovelorn . The difference between the West African, who does not
mind being black, and the South African native, who does, shows up in
Drum's two editions; e.g., a pomade ad in the South African edition
promises to de-kink hair, but for West African readers the same product
touts its ability to preserve natural curl. Threaded through Drum's lively editorial potpourri is a dedication to
the equality of man. Drum recognizes no color line, not even on its
125-man staff, where black and white work side by side. When the
Rhodesian government boasted that “better-class Africans, properly
dressed and properly behaved,” would not be discriminated against, Drum
tailored one of its Negro reporters in an expensive suit, equipped him
with a certificate of education from a white university professor, then
assigned him to order a meal in a Salisbury railway station cafe. As
the reporter was thrown out, Drum cameras clicked.
