This collection of interviews covers the period 1979-1990 when Julie Frederikse worked as a journalist and an author. During this period Frederikse worked as a journalist for the National Public Radio (NPR) in the USA, covering Southern Africa. She then wrote the book, 'South Africa: A Different Kind of War: From Soweto to Pretoria, 1986', and thereafter she wrote 'The Unbreakable Thread: Non-racialism in South Africa', 1990.

For the writing of 'The Unbreakable Thread', Frederikse was based at the Popular History Trust (PHT) in Harare, Zimbabwe. It was at PHT, where most of the interviews conducted for the purposes of this book, were transcribed. 140 interviews were further edited and a database for these interviews was created using Notebook (see section S). In 1990, the South African History Archive (SAHA) and PHT merged. This collection of interviews were part of the PHT material that came to SAHA.

The audio interviews were subsequently digitised. Due to their fragile condition, the interview transcripts were digitised as part of SAHA's Non-Racialism Project. The first phase of this project included the curation of a 25th anniversary commemorative edition of 'The Unbreakable Thread: Non-racialism in South Africa', by SAHA in 2015, in consultation with Julie Frederikse.

During this time Frederikse made a further donation of materials that relates to her earlier books, 'None But Ourselves: Masses vs Media (1982), 'South Africa: A Different Kind of War' (1986) as well as to 'The Unbreakable Thread'. While the bulk of the material consists of research materials for her books, especially 'The Unbreakable Thread', it also includes a collection of ephemera such as her press passes, badges and stickers. She also made a large collection of correspondence, book reviews, photographs and other documents available to SAHA to be digitised for inclusion in the virtual exhibition ‘Tracing the Unbreakable Thread: Non-racialism in South Africa'. The digitised items have been processed as part of the Julie Frederikse collection.

NPR - National Public Radio

PHT - Popular History Trust

SAHA - South African History Archive