Sandra Laing

Sandra Laing (born 26 November 1955) is a South African woman who was classified as Coloured by authorities under the apartheid system, due to her skin colour and hair type, although she was officially listed as the child of at least three generations of ancestors who had been regarded as white. At the age of 10, she was expelled from her all-white school, and the authorities' decisions based on her physical appearance disrupted her family and adult life.

Laing was the subject of the 2008 biographical dramatic film Skin, directed by Anthony Fabian, which won numerous awards. In addition, she is the subject of the documentaries In Search of Sandra Laing (1977), directed by Anthony Thomas for the BBC, which was banned by the apartheid government of the time, Sandra Laing: A Spiritual Journey (2000), and Skin Deep: The Story of Sandra Laing (2009).

Early life Susanna Magrietha "Sandra" Laing was born in 1955 to Susanna Margaretha "Sannie" (née Roux) (1920–2001) and Abraham Laing (1916–1988), Afrikaners in Piet Retief, a small conservative town in South Africa under the apartheid system, when laws governed officially established social castes of racial classification. Her paternal grandparents were Alfred Laing (1874–1962) of Memel, Germany (now Klaipėda, Lithuania) and Hester Sophia Goosen (1877–1949); her maternal grandparents were Adriaan Roux (1876–1967) and Susanna Magrietha Veldman (1886–1967), after whom Sandra was named. She had darker skin and more kinky hair than other members of her family, which seemed to become more obvious as she grew older. Her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were all white, but Sandra displayed the physiognomy of Black ancestors from earlier generations, perhaps from the 18th century or more recent. She was expelled and escorted home by two police officers.

Later years After the publicity, Laing found herself shunned by the white community, although she was re-classified as white again in 1966 when the law was changed to allow a person to be classified as white if both parents are classified as white. She attended a Coloured boarding school away from her family and became immersed in the non-white world. Her only friends were the children of black employees. At the age of 16, Laing eloped to Eswatini with Petrus Zwane, a black South African who spoke Zulu. She was jailed for three months for illegal border-crossing. Her father threatened to kill her for the marriage and broke off contact with her. They never met again.