Speakers at the Barrick Lecture Series have included international figures and heads of state, such as Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Mikhail Gorbachev and F. W. de Klerk.
In 1990 the white president Frederik Willem (F.W.) de Klerk recognised the economic unsustainability of the apartheid system and released Nelson Mandela the black nationalist leader and unbanned the African National Congress (ANC) that Mandela led.
This includes the events of 9 August 1991 when President F. W. de Klerk visited Ventersdorp (the leader's birthplace and a major power base for the AWB at the time) and the battle which subsequently ensued when the AWB allegedly cut the town's power supply and began firing on police.