The book revisits a study conducted in 1994 on subjects defined as historically disadvantaged by the apartheid regime. However, despite the ravages of that regime, these individuals had succeeded and gotten extraordinary opportunities to pursue higher education in colleges and universities in the U.S. In the study, the subjects discussed and shared their visions of South Africa as a new democracy while coming to terms with the impact of apartheid. A sample of the 1994 subjects are surveyed for this book. The author concludes that, in short, while South Africa has possibilities, several challenges remain, in particular economic challenges.

This book is an analysis of key factors that may be problematic as Southern Africa shifts to a new "democracy". Based on research conducted on black South Africans who have been studying overseas, the author examines intragroup differences that have been created and accentuated by forty years of apartheid rule in South Africa. Contents: Preface; Introduction; Post-Independence Conflict: Theoretical Perspectives; Current Conflict Dynamics in South Africa; Research Methodology; Data Presentation and Analysis: Part I; Data Presentation and Analysis: Part II; Summary and the Implications of the Findings; Appendix A: Cover Letter to Respondents; Questionnaire Reminder; Acronyms of Variables; List of Abbreviations; Questionnaire; Bibliography; Index.

"Like Trotsky, I did not leave home with the proverbial one-and-six in my pocket. I come from a family of landed gentry . . . [and] could have chosen the path of comfort and safety, for even in apartheid South Africa, there is still that path for those who will collaborate. But I chose the path of struggle and uncertainty."--from the Preface Born into the small social elite of black South Africa, Phyllis Ntantala did not face the grinding poverty so familiar to other South African blacks. Instead, her struggle was that of a creative, articulate woman seeking fulfillment and justice in a land that tried to deny her both. The widow of Xhosa writer and historian A.C. Jordan and mother of African National Congress leader Z. Pallo Jordan, she and her family experienced a period of tremendous change in South Africa and also in the United States, where they moved during the 1960s. She discovers similarities in the two countries, including the arrogance of power. Anchored in history and culture, A Life's Mosaic sharply reveals the world and the people of South Africa. As the story of a political exile, it represents the dislocations that have caused universal suffering in the second half of the twentieth century. Phyllis Ntantala discusses the cruelty of racism, the cynicism of political solutions, and the hopes of those who live in both a world of exile and a world of dreams.