Memorialising David Webster

On 1 May 1989, anthropologist and human-rights activist David Webster was gunned down outside his home in Troyeville, Johannesburg. Since his untimely death, Webster has been publicly remembered in numerous ways. This paper looks at some of these memorials, in particular a boundary wall erected at the site of his assassination and a portrait made in a Troyeville park, which was named after him. In the process, it focuses on the ways in which certain self-organising publics have chosen to remember and acknowledge both Webster's life, and his appalling death. The events held to launch both of these modest memorials became commemorations in themselves. The significance of the public and private memories of the individuals and groups responsible for erecting these memorials is also examined. This paper explores ways in which memory is facilitated in the production of memorials and the ways in which memories of this particular man have been inscribed into the public domain.