The British government raised serious concerns over what an interracial marriage would do to international relations between them (British government) and South Africa, Botswana’s neighbouring country that had just passed a law against mixed marriage. Having banned interracial marriage under the apartheid system, South Africa was not ready to have an interracial couple ruling just across their northern border. The tension their marriage caused had not yet died down when Appiah and Peggy announced that they were getting married. Accounts state that apartheid South Africa’s minister of justice, Charles Swart, described the marriage as “disgusting”. A correspondent of a Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) newspaper also wrote that the pictures would “turn the stomach of a pig”.

Source: The North Africa Journal September 30, 2018 09:56 UTC