White S. African Minister Who Moved to Black Area Leaving After 3 Years

A white minister of South Africa’s Dutch Reformed Church, who made news in 1986 when he and his wife moved to the black township of Mamelodi, is returning to live in a white area.

Rev. Nico Smith’s wife, Ellen, told reporters as she supervised movers Tuesday that she and her her husband need more free time. She said he has been unable to get a good night’s sleep in the township, outside Pretoria, because people come for help and advice at all hours.

The Smiths were the first whites to be granted official permission to move into an urban black township since the South African government formally segregated residential areas in 1950. It took them two years to clear the red tape.

Smith said at the time that he wanted to be close to the heartbeat of his black congregation, which consists of nearly 500 families. He denounced apartheid and said he wants to break down barriers between white and black South Africans.

“We whites have built a Western world at the southern tip of Africa,” he said then. “We think we have become Africans, but we haven’t. We are pretending. Until whites stop pretending and truly become part of Africa, we will not resolve our problems.”

The couple’s home in Mamelodi was financed by foreign donations, including $20,000 from the Bel-Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angles.

The Smiths are moving about 18 miles from Pretoria, and Smith will commute daily to his parish.