These Are the New Street Names That Represent All Racial Groups, Genders and Political Spectrums, Including Afrikaner Religious
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These are the new street names that represent all racial groups, genders and political spectrums, including Afrikaner religious leaders and academics that played an important role in the country's liberation struggle. According to the Executive Mayor, Cllr Kgosientso Ramokgopa, the street name changes were necessary to ensure racial harmony and cohesion in the city. Nelson (Madiba) Mandela (1918 - ) Nelson Mandela is one of the most famous political leaders in the world. He was born in Qunu, near Umtata in the Eastern Cape and is a qualified lawyer. He was the first democratically elected South African president, serving from 1994 to 1999. Before his presidency, Mandela was a militant anti-apartheid activist and the leader and co-founder of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). In 1962, he was arrested and convicted of sabotage and other charges. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, for treason, by the apartheid government but was released in February 1990 after serving 27 years. Professor Johan Heyns (1928 – 1994) Johan Heyns was an influential Afrikaner Calvinist theologian and moderator of the general synod of the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk (NGK). He was assassinated at his home in Waterkloof Ridge in 1994. His death drew shock and outrage from all moderates in South Africa, including Nelson Mandela. Heyns was instrumental in the 1986 NGK decision to abandon its support for apartheid and brand it a sin. Although his murder was never officially solved, it is widely believed that it was directly related to his criticism of apartheid. Nelson Mandela paid homage to him as a martyr for his country and a soldier of peace. Dr Nico Smith (1929 – 2010) Nico Smith was an Afrikaner minister and a prominent opponent of apartheid. He was a professor of theology at the University of Stellenbosch, a member of the Afrikaner Broederbond (Afrikaner Brotherhood) organisation and a minister of the then apartheid-supporting Dutch Reformed Church (DRC). He had close contact with the young black people of Pretoria, Johannesburg and the Vaal Triangle. In time, they grew to trust him. Nico shocked many people when he, as a white man with an impeccable Afrikaner pedigree, a prestigious university job and a comfortable home, and his wife, Ellen, abandoned their upper-class lifestyle to live with the residents of Mamelodi from where they opposed apartheid. Sefako Makgatho (1861 – 1951) Sefako Mapogo Makgatho was born in Ga-Mphahlele, outside Polokwane. He was a politician, journalist, teacher and the second president of the ANC (1917-1924). He studied theology and education abroad and taught at the Kilnerton Training Institute until 1906 when he helped form one of the first teachers' unions, the Transvaal African Teachers' Association (TATA). In the seven years he was president of the ANC, he used the courts to challenge legislation that affected and undermined Africans in the urban areas, particularly laws relating to their freedom of movement. He later retired from politics to become a preacher of the local Methodist Church before starting an independent African church. He lived and died in Riverside, near Mamelodi, in May 1951 aged 90. Steve Biko (1946 – 1977) Steve Biko was an anti-apartheid activist in the 1960s and 1970s. As a student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement and the South African Students' Organisation (SASO). His quest for black unity led to his detention and subsequent death in police custody at the Pretoria Central Prison in 1977. Since then, he has been called a martyr of the anti-apartheid movement. While living, his writings and activism attempted to empower black people and he was famous for his slogan "black is beautiful". Despite friction between the African National Congress and Biko throughout the 1970s, the ANC has included Biko in the pantheon of struggle heroes. Elias Motsoaledi (1924 – 1994) Born in Ga-Sekhukhune in Phokoane, Limpopo, Elias Motsoaledi joined the ANC in 1948, becoming a member of the Transvaal executive. In June of the same year he was elected as the branch secretary. He was a member of the South African Communist Party. He played a central role in many campaigns, including the Defiance Campaign of 1952, the year in which he was first banned. Detained during the 1960 State of Emergency and again in 1963 under the notorious 90-day Detention Law, Motsoaledi was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Rivonia Trial. He joined Umkhonto we Sizwe in 1962 and, in 1991, was elected a member of the ANC's National Executive Committee. Francis Baard (1901 – 1997) Francis "MaBaard" Baard was, during the 1952 Defiance Campaign, an organiser of the ANC Women's League. She played a leading role in the women's march against passes in 1956 and was actively involved in the drafting of the Freedom Charter in 1955. In 1956, she was a defendant in the Treason Trial and became a member of the executive committee of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU). She was detained in 1960 and again in 1963 and held for 12 months in solitary confinement before being sentenced to five years imprisonment in 1964 in terms of the Suppression of Communism Act. After her release in 1969, she was banned to Mabopane. Helen Joseph (1905 – 1992) Helen Joseph (née Fennell) was a South African anti-apartheid activist. She was born in England. For 40 years, Helen was an inspiration and a symbol of defiance, integrity and courage. She was a founding member of the Congress of Democrats and one of the leaders who read out clauses of the Freedom Charter at the Congress of the People in Kliptown in 1955. Appalled by the plight of black women, she was pivotal in the formation of the Federation of South African Women. In 1956, with the organisation's leadership, she spearheaded a march of 20 000 women to the Union Buildings in protest against the pass laws. She was the first person to be placed under house arrest. She endured and survived threats, bullets shot through her bedroom window late at night and even a bomb wired to her front gate. Her last banning order was lifted when she was in her 80th year. Walter Sisulu (1912 – 2003) Walter Sisulu joined the ANC in 1940. In 1943, he, Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo, joined the ANC Youth League and he later became treasurer of the ANC Youth League. Sisulu became secretary-general of the ANC in 1949, displacing the more passive older leadership – he held that post until 1954. Sisulu was a brilliant political networker and had a prominent planning role in the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe. In October 1963, he was charged in the Rivonia Trial and on 12 June 1964, sentenced to life imprisonment for planning acts of sabotage. The following day Sisulu and other convicted Rivonia trialists were sent to Robben Island. He was released in 1989 after serving 26 years in prison. He was elected ANC deputy president in July 1991, after its unbanning the year before. He remained in the position until after South Africa's first democratic election in 1994. Sophie de Bruyn (1938 - ) Sophie Williams-de Bruyn was 18 in 1956 when she, Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph and Rahima Moosa led more than 20 000 women in a march to the Union Buildings. She is the only surviving leader of the historical event. She was also a volunteer in the 1955 Freedom Charter Campaign and had been a unionist since age 15 after poverty had forced her to leave school and work in a factory. She was a founding member of the South African Congress of Trade Union, the predecessor of the Congress of South African Trade Union. Dr WF Nkomo (1915 – 1972) Dr William Frederick Nkomo was a medical doctor, educationist and community leader who tried to bring different races closer together. Until his death, he served as the Trustee of the Bantu Welfare Trust, which aimed to improve the lot of urban Africans and promote cooperation between black and white South Africans. In January 1972, a few months before his death on 26 March of the same year, he was elected president of the South African Institute of Race Relations. Lilian Ngoyi (1911 – 1980) Lilian Masediba Ngoyi was born in Pretoria. She was an anti-apartheid activist, treason trialist and president of the ANC Women's League. When the Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) was formed in 1954, she became one of its national vice-presidents. On 9 August 1956, she led the women's anti-pass march to the Union Buildings and personally knocked on Prime Minister Strijdom's door to hand over the petitions. In December 1956, Ngoyi was arrested for high treason along with 156 other leading figures. She stood trial until 1961 as one of the accused in the four-year long Treason Trial. She was banned from 1962 to 1972 and again in 1975. During the time of her banning, Ngoyi's great energies were totally suppressed and she struggled to earn a decent living. She subsequently suffered heart trouble and died in March 1980 aged 68. Thabo Sehume (19?? – 2005) Thabo Sehume was a Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) and Azapo stalwart, a community worker and leader, a shrewd trade unionist and, above all, a revolutionary intellectual. He was banned, put under house arrest and detained without trial countless times. He dedicated his time to working with the municipal workers union, general mobilisation work and the establishment of an advice centre for Tshwane, particularly the community of Atteridgeville. Es’kia Mphahlele (1919 – 2008) Professor Es'kia Mphahlele was a writer, academic, artist and activist.