Dying for Gold – The Untold story of the Making of South Africa
South Africa’s wealth was produced during the last 120 years by over five Million black men who were recruited from across Southern Africa to dig for gold.
Dying for Gold tells how gold mining has gone hand in hand with illness and death since the discovery of gold in 1886. Today gold miner communities in South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho and Botswana face the world's greatest epidemic of silicosis and tuberculosis as a result of exposure to dust in gold mines.
Dying for Gold juxtaposes intimate testimony from mining families with documents and films from corporate and state archives to reveal how gold mining has shaped the political economy of South Africa and has left us with a legacy that continues to produce poverty, death and inequality .
Dying for Gold tells the backstory of South Africa’s biggest class action court case in which gold miners charged their former employers with systemic neglect and causing illness and death in the pursuit of profits.
