Khotso Seatlholo

Student Leader & Political Activist

Khotso Seatlholo was born on 5 November 1958 in Moletsane, Soweto, and was raised by both parents. His revolutionary consciousness came to him at a young age, as he would regularly witness his father exclusively supporting the black economy, and never being afraid of confronting any Afrikaaner under oppression.

At age 16 he was a student at Naledi High School  in Soweto where he became the Deputy President of the Soweto Student Representative Council (SSRC), with the President being Tsietsi Mashinini. The two, along with students under The Black Consciousness Movement planned the peaceful protest of 1976 which turned into both a bloody and deadly affair.

Khotso Seatlholo survived being shot in ’76 and then became the president of the SSRC after Mashinini went into exile to escape apartheid police, following a witch hunt against him by then Prime Minister John Vorster’s Security Police.

As president of the SSRC ,Seatlholo elevated it and worked to ensure an intergenerational link between students, parents and workers in their struggles. With this unity, there were never-ending successful strikes and boycotts. One of the more successful ones were called “Black Christmas” wherein Khotso asked of all blacks to avoid any Christmas shopping, in attempts to wield a major blow on the country’s economy.

For his political activism Khotso survived being shot at in December 1976, and in 1978, he was forced into exile in Botswana where he joined Tsietsi Mashinini. Seatlholo would secretly come in and out of the country, from time to time, during the years that followed his exile.

In 1981, during one of his secret visits to South Africa, the Security Police arrested Seatlholo and charged him under the Terrorism Act.

He had come in to the country to recruit and garner support for the South African Youth Revolutionary Council (SAYCRO), the military wing of the SSRC. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Seatlholo was released in 1990 with the likes of former President Nelson Mandela, when South Africa was in the midst of a political transition.

After his release from prison, Seatlholo was unemployed, and forgotten and became a loner. He died at his home in Pimville, Soweto, after complaining of a stomach ache in 2004. He was buried at the Avalon Cemetery and is survived by 3 daughters and Wife.

Accessed from: SA History Online & Joburg Post

Khotso  Seatlholo Student Leader & Political Activist Khotso Seatlholo was born on 5 November 1958 in Moletsane, Soweto, and...

 Teboho Tsietsi Mashinini

Student Leader & Political Activist

Tsietsi Mashinini was born on 27 January 1957 in Central Western Jabavu, Soweto. Mashinini was the second son of Ramothibi, a lay preacher in the Methodist Church, and Nomkhitha Mashinini, and was one of 13 children (11 boys and twin girls). He was active in his local Methodist parish and chairperson of the Methodist Wesley Youth Guild at the age of 16.

His education started at the Amajeli crèche in 1963. He went on to Seoding Lower Primary, after which he proceeded to Itshepeng Higher Primary. In 1971 he became a student at Morris Isaacson High. He was a passionate reader.  This was spotted by his History and English teacher, Abram Onkgopotse Tiro, who taught at Morris Isaacson after was expelled from the University of the North (Turfloop) for his political activities in the Black Consciousness Movement. Tiro had great influence in shaping Mashinini's political thinking and subsequent adherence to the ideology and philosophy of Black Consciousness. He mentored him and supplied him with reading material.

Mashinini was the chairperson of the debating team at his school, and his excellent academic performance became the basis for his influence among his peers. Mashinini’s energy, creativity and sportsmanship became evident through his recreational activity, which included theatre, baseball, ballroom dancing, martial arts, swimming and tennis.

Mashinini joined the South African Students Movement (SASM), a student body established to assist students with the transition from Matric to university. On 13th June 1976, about 500 Soweto students met at the Orlando Donaldson Community Hall to discuss ways and means of confronting and challenging the Department of Bantu Education. The students decided to stage a peaceful protest march on 16 June against the introduction of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction.

An Action Committee was set up to prepare for the campaign. Mashinini was elected chairperson of the Action Committee, which was later renamed the Soweto Students Representative Council (SSRC), with Mashinini as its first president (until he was succeeded by Khotso Seatlholo from Naledi High School). Mashinini and Murphy Morobe were the two representatives from Morris Issacson High School serving in the Soweto Student Representative Council.

During assembly on the morning of 16 June at Morris Isaacson High School, Mashinini climbed onto the podium and led students into song, and out of the school grounds towards their assembly point for the planned student demonstration.

They were joined by students from other schools in Soweto. It is estimated that 20000 uniformed students joined the mass demonstration. As they marched down in a throng, they came across a police barricade on their way to the assembly point. Mashinini climbed a makeshift podium to deliver a spirited address, telling students to march peacefully, to remain orderly and not to provoke the police.

The horrific events of that day, which saw the South African police shoot live bullets at peacefully protesting students, turned him into an instant hero and an activist of national importance. He stood steadfast against State harassment and imminent arrest,  issuing press statements, and calling for students to boycott classes, and wrote critically of the police’s actions on 16 June that saw innocent students massacred.

As President of the SSRC, Mashinini issued many press statements on behalf of the organisation and the larger student body. He called for unity, class boycotts, stay-aways, and disseminated information. But he also used the platform to attack the State, reacting to the State’s violence against the masses. In response to the shootings of June 16, he said: “We see it as an official declaration of war on the black students by our ‘peace-officers'.”

Mashinini became an enemy of the “system” and, in particular, the hostel dwellers. The police frequently converged on his home in an attempt to arrest him. On two occasions, he came dressed in a female outfit and eluded arrest, becoming the most wanted man in the country. The police offered a R500 reward for anyone who could supply information that would lead to his arrest. A Colonel Visser of the Soweto CID made an appeal to Mashinini to hand himself over, saying he risked being killed by angry hostel dwellers who were antagonised by the recent unrest. Visser further said it would be best if his parents brought him to the police station. “We believe that Mashinini is active and moving about Soweto and other townships, but we have never been able to locate him. If you spot him, or know where he is, you must report him to the nearest police,” said Visser.

The events of 16 June 1976 saw large numbers of youth joining the ranks of the African National Congress (ANC) and its military wing, Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK), eventually leading to more vigorous mass action, and international boycotts against apartheid and South Africa.

The intense scrutiny compelled Mashinini to flee the country. He left the country for Botswana in August 1976, living there for few months before he proceeded to the West Coast of Africa. Heads of states, notably Sekou Toure of Ivory Coast, and African parliamentarians received him. He resided in countries like Nigeria where he was briefly hosted in the presidential guest house in Lagos. While in exile Mashinini was interviewed by many media organisations and he addressed students at universities, revealing the realities of the South African political situation.

Tsietsi with his wife, Welma Campbell

Mashinini finally settled in Liberia, where he married Welma Campbell, the daughter of a parliamentarian, in 1978. The marriage was blessed with two daughters, Nomkhitha (named after his mother) and Thembi. However the marriage ended after a few years.

Mashinini later visited the United Kingdom and the United States, where he addressed the United Nations on the brutalities of the apartheid regime. By many accounts, Mashinini did not join any of the established liberation movements in exile.

Tsietsi Mashinini will always be remembered as a fearless fighter and student leader whose name will forever be etched in memory as one of the outstanding leaders of the South African revolution.

One of Mashinini's admirers was his compatriot, Miriam Makeba, who was in exile in Guinea. She had offered Mashinini a place to stay in her home in Conakry shortly before his death. Mashinini died under mysterious circumstances in 1990. He was hospitalised for multiple injuries, apparently the result of an attack.  He died a few days later. Mashinini's body was terribly disfigured: his left eye had fallen out into his coffin; his left ear was bleeding and he had deep bruises on his face, including a large scar on his forehead.

The epitaph on his tombstone reads: “At the height of struggle, he gave impetus to the liberation struggle.” His tombstone at Avalon cemetery in Soweto was twice vandalised, and the marble stone was removed.

On 27 April 2011, the State President, Jacob G Zuma honoured Tsietsi Mashinini, posthumously, with the Order of Luthuli in Gold for his inspirational leadership to young people, for the sacrifices he made while leading students against Afrikaans as a medium of instruction, and for his role in the struggle against apartheid.

Accessed from: SA History Online

  Teboho Tsietsi Mashinini Student Leader & Political Activist Tsietsi Mashinini was born on 27 January 1957 in Central ...

Celebrating Africa Month

Remembering Africa Liberation Day

“Africa’s victory, although proclaimed, is not yet total, and areas of resistance still remain.”

– Emperor Haile Selassie I, First President of OAU

The month of May, also known as Africa Month, marks the annual commemoration on 25 May of the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the precursor of today’s African Union (AU). Today the AU, consisting of fifty-three member states, brings together Africa to collectively address the challenges it faces.

At the end of the Second World War, the African liberation movement was gaining momentum as Africans were fighting for independence from colonial domination. Consequently, between 1945 and 1958, a significant number of African countries gained independence. On 6 March 1957, Ghana was the first country to gain independence.

A year after gaining independence, Ghana’s President Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, convened the First Conference of Independent African States in Accra, Ghana on 15 April 1958. The conference was an unequivocal assertion of Africa’s rejection of colonial and imperialist domination of the continent. It became the first Pan African conference to be held on the continent bringing together various African countries. Ethiopia, Egypt, Liberia, Libya, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia attended the conference. Also in attendance were the representatives of the National Liberation Front (FLN) of Algeria and the Union of Cameroonian Peoples. It is worth noting that at the time of the conference, only eight countries were independent.

To further encourage and forge a common goal of fighting against colonial rule, the conference called for the observance of African Freedom Day or African Liberation Day once a year, to mark “the onward progress of the liberation movement, and to symbolize the determination of the People of Africa to free themselves from foreign domination and exploitation.” Consequently, 15 April was enacted as African Freedom Day or Africa Liberation Day.

Years following the First Conference of Independent African States, between 1958 and 1963, seventeen African countries gained independence. On May 25, 1963, the OAU was founded with headquarters in Africa Hall, Ethiopia; Africa Freedom Day or African Liberation Day was changed to Africa Day, which would be commemorated annually on 25 May.

Accessed from: Brands South Africa ;  South African History Online ; Time and Date

Celebrating Africa Month Remembering Africa Liberation Day “Africa’s victory, although proclaimed, is not yet total, and areas o...

Walter Ulyate Sisulu

Biography of a Freedom Fighter

(1912 – 2003)

“It is a law of life that problems arise when conditions are there for their solution.”  

- Walter Sisulu

Walter Ulyate Sisulu was a South African anti-apartheid activist and a member of the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party (SACP). He was born on 18 May 1912 in Ngcobo in Transkei (now Eastern Cape) to Alice Mase Sisulu and Albert Victor Dickenson. He was married to nurse and anti-apartheid activist, Nontsikelelo Albertina Sisulu (nee Thethiwe), and together they had eight children, three of which where adopted.

In Ngcobo, Sisulu attended the Anglican Mission Institute, however, after the death of his uncle at the age of fourteen, he left for Johannesburg to find work. In Johannesburg, Sisulu took up a range of work as a delivery man for a dairy; in the masonry and carpentry department, then as a miner of the Rose Deep Mine in Germiston; as a domestic; and as a baker for Premier Biscuits. In 1940, Sisulu was dismissed at Premier Biscuits because he not only organised a strike for higher wages, but he also attempted to form a union. 

Sisulu also worked as a paint mixer for Herbert Evans in Johannesburg; as a packer for a tobacconist; as a part-time teller at the Union Bank of South Africa, and after 1938 as an advertising salesperson and real estate agent. His real estate business, Sitha Investments sold property to Black and Indian people, and prior to the apartheid government shutting its operation, it was the only Black owned estate agency in South Africa.

In 1940, Sisulu joined the ANC and allied with the organisation’s principle of African nationalism. It was also around this this time that he met Albertina Sisulu, who he later married in 1944. In 1943, as founding member of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL), he attended conferences of the Federation of Democratic Youth in Romania and the International Union of Students in Poland. He also travelled to the Soviet Union, China, and the United Kingdom. When he returned to South Africa he joined the SACP.

In 1949 Sisulu became ANCYL Secretary-General, where he organised the strategy of active protest, most notably the Defiance Campaign of 1952. For his role in the Defiance Campaign, he was arrested for a brief period before being served with the first of his many banning orders under the Suppression of Communism Act. Ultimately, Sisulu was tried and sentenced for nine months imprisonment with hard labour and suspended for two years for his role in the Defiance Campaign. No longer able to attend public meetings, Sisulu resigned as Secretary-General was forced to work in secret. Sisulu co-organised The 1955 Congress of People but was unable to participate in the event. In the aftermath of the Congress of People, 156 anti-apartheid activists were arrested, with thirty of them tried at the Treason Trial. Released on bail, Sisulu went underground which resulted in the arrest of Albertina Sisulu under General Laws Amendment Act of 1963. She became the first woman to be arrested under the General Laws Amendment Act.

Following the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960 Sisulu, Mandela and several others formed Umkonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the ANC. During 1962 and 1963 Sisulu was arrested six times but released on bail in April 1963 Sisulu went underground, joining up with the Umkonto we Sizwe, who were secretly located in Rivonia.  

In 1964, at the Rivonia Trial, Sisulu was sentenced to life imprisonment with other anti-apartheid activists. Sisulu served the majority of his sentence on Robben Island, and served the remaining at Pollsmoor Prison, Cape Town.

In 1989, after twenty-five years imprisonment, Sisulu was released from Pollsmoor Prison. He was elected Deputy President of the organisation in 1991, a year after the ANC was unbanned. Sisulu was responsible for restructuring the ANC in post-apartheid/democratic South Africa.

On the eve of South Africa’s democratic elections, Sisulu retired, and nine years later on 5 May 2003, following a long period of ill health Sisulu died. 

Accessed from: African National Congress;  ThoughtCo ; South African History Online;  Wikipedia: Walter Sisulu

Walter Ulyate Sisulu Biography of a Freedom Fighter (1912 – 2003) “It is a law of life that problems arise when conditions are...

Ndazana Nathaniel Nakasa

Journalist & Author

(1937– 1965)

“As long as the ideas remain unchanged within me, there will always be the possibility that, one day, I shall burst out and say everything that I wish to say in a loud and thunderous voice.” - Nat Nakasa

Ndazana Nathaniel (Nat) Nakasa was born on 12 May 1937 in Lusikisiki, Eastern Cape. Nakasa was the second of three children of Joseph Nakasa and his wife, Alvina Nakasa. As a child from a working-class family in an impoverished rural area, Nakasa was forced by poverty to leave school in 1954 without matriculating. He moved to Durban where he worked as a reporter for Ilanga newspaper, published in Zulu and English. He later moved to Johannesburg where he joined Post and later Drum magazine. He also freelanced for publications in Germany, Sweden, the USA and Britain.

After leaving school, aged seventeen he returned to Durban and after many jobs, two friends helped him find a job a year later as a junior reporter at the Ilanga Lase Natal, a Zulu language weekly. After his reporting attracted the attention of Sylvester Stein of the Drum magazine, he joined the magazine in 1957. He and the other journalists writings at the Drum were influenced by the Suppression of Communism Act, 1950 and had to show the effects of Apartheid indirectly on black lives without condemning it directly for fear of being banned from practising journalism.

With the Sharpville Massacre of 1960, the world took an interest in South Africa and so in 1961, he was asked to write an article entitled The Human Meaning of Apartheid for The New York Times. Drum struggled to keep its black writers due to the severe restriction they found themselves in and many went into exile in Europe of America. In 1963, he announced the formation of a quarterly literary magazine called The Classic, a magazine in English for African intellectual writers and poets from any race around Africa.

The first years printing would be funded by Professor John Thompson of the Farfield Foundation, that unknown to Nakasa was funded by the CIA in order to cultivate a pro-American intellectual elite around the world. It first published in June 1963 and would feature writers such as Can Themba, Ezekiel Mphahlele, and Casey Motsisi. Doris Lessing and Leopold Senghor would feature in other issues and would later be edited by writer Barney Simon. In 1963, the Publications and Entertainment Act was passed which allowed the South African government broad powers to ban or censor content it deemed unfavourable to the interest of the country, further hindering Nakasa's work as he attempted to stay within the law.

In 1964, Nakasa applied for a Nieman Fellowship, a journalism program at Harvard University out of fear for his future employment prospects in South Africa and was accepted for 1965 intake. At the same time, Allister Sparks, editorial page editor of the white anti-apartheid newspaper the Rand Daily Mail invited Nakasa to write a black perspective column for the paper. On accepting a Nieman Fellowship, Nakasa applied for a passport, but like many other black intellectuals, was refused and would have to accept an exit permit instead which meant relinquishing his citizenship and not being allowed to return to South Africa. Unbeknown to Nakasa, the South African police had been monitoring him since 1959 and were about to issue him with a five-year banning order under the Suppression of Communism Act when left for the United States in October 1964.

Nakasa soon found that racism existed in America as well, albeit more subtly. Nakasa didn't like New York City and soon moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts where he spent his time at Harvard steeped in the somber business of education. While attending the Nieman Fellowship, he participated in protest meetings against Apartheid at Cambridge, Massachusetts and in Washington DC and unsuccessfully attempted again to write an article for The New York Times.

He completed his Nieman Fellowship at the end of June 1965, by which time he was short of money and his attempted to extend his visa beyond August seemed unsuccessful. Now living in Harlem, he wrote articles for several newspapers after leaving Harvard, appeared in the television film The Fruit of Fear and was planning to write a biography of Miriam Makeba. But two days before his death he told a friend, “I can't laugh anymore and when I can't laugh I can't write”. Nakasa seemed homesick, unable to return to South Africa, unsettled and drinking, he became depressed and confessed to friend Nadine Gordimer that he was worried he had inherited his mother’s mental illness. On 14 July 1965, he committed suicide when he jumped from his friend’s New York seven story apartment.

Nakasa's writings were compiled into a book ‘The World of Nat Nakasa’. He was an influential writer and had an impact on many black people and writers. The Print Media Association, the South African Nieman Alumni, and the South African National Editors' Forum have established an annual award for courageous journalism, which is named after him. Its first recipient was Jon Qwelane.

 Accessed from: SA History Online & Wikipedia: Nat Nakasa

Ndazana Nathaniel Nakasa Journalist & Author (1937 – 1965) “As long as the ideas remain unchanged within me, there w...