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On this day, 6 January 1968, the music press announced that Welsh singer Tom Jones was to perform in South Africa in front of segregated audiences.
Jones manager Gordon Mills said he had received a “tremendous offer” for Tom to tour South Africa for three weeks in early summer and had flown to Johannesburg on Boxing Day to discuss the offer.
If the tour scheduled to last 21 days is agreed, Tom Jones would have to play to segregated audiences as South Africa’s apartheid policy prevents white and coloured people from attending concerts in the same auditorium.
Asked whether he would sing under these conditions, Tom commented : “I’ll sing to white people, and I’ll sing to coloured people. The fact that they cannot be in the building at the same time is not my fault and no amount of preaching from me will change that, as some other singers have already proved.
“Everyone knows that I hate colour prejudice but would rather sing to them this way than not at all.”
Gordon Mills said : “Until I get to South Africa I don’t know fully what the situation is, but my first reaction is that Tom will obey the laws of the country in the exact same way as we would expect any foreigner coming here to obey our laws.”
If Tom, currently no 3 in the singles chart with “I’m Coming Home” makes the trip, it would be his first visit to South Africa.
The tour didn’t take place, largely due to Tom’s loathing of apartheid and the harm it would have done to his image at the time, though he did controversially perform in South Africa later, in 1976.
Jones was quick to point out that he would not have toured if his audiences weren’t mixed and that back home he avoided a British Musicians Union ban by showing press- clippings illustrating that his audiences were apparently multi-racial.
