This essay discusses my experiences and recollections of the 1957 bus boycott in Alexandra, the township in which I grew up. Unusually, it was a freehold area in which Africans could own land, and my parents owned two properties there.
Bongani Mnguni was a South African photographer and photojournalist who dedicated his life to exposing the brutality of the apartheid system.
Mnguni was born in Soweto on the 18th of November in 1953. He attended and matriculated at Orlando High School in Soweto. His interest in photography began in the early 1960's.
Every time there is violence of a particular sort in SA I think about 1949. In mid-January of that year a single incident between an Indian shopkeeper and a young African man sparked days of tremendous brutality across Durban.
The National Party government had been elected less than a year before and had not yet had the opportunity to implement its plans to segregate the city. Blacks and Indians lived cheek by jowl in and around the docks and city centre, in hostels and the tightly packed lanes of shops, mosques and markets. They shared the streets, more or less peacefully.
On 16 July 2019, Jonny Clegg died at the age 66 years at his home in Johannesburg, Gauteng after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2015. He is known as a songwriter, a dancer and an anthropologist. Clegg‘s music touched so many souls with its vibrant blend of Western pop and African Zulu rhythms. Clegg’s unique music style had an impact by embracing different cultures and enhanced the social cohesion of young South Africans.
During his music career, he produced so many hits including Impi, Great Heart and African Sky Blue. In addition, he received a number of awards including being called a ‘Knight of Arts and Letters’ by the French Government in 1991. Clegg was nominated as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). This veteran was also honoured with various doctorates including the Order of Ikhamanga. Jonny Clegg is survived by his wife Jenny and their two sons Jesse and Jaron.
On 23 January 2018, Hugh Masekela passed away peacefully at his home in Johannesburg, South Africa surrounded by his family. He died after a battle with prostate cancer. In March 2016, he underwent eye surgery when the doctors found out his cancer had spread. The same year in September he had to have surgery again after another tumour was discovered.
Masekela was born in KwaGuqa Township in Witbank, Mpumalanga Province. He started to sing and play the piano at a young age. At the age of 14 after seeing a film of a ‘young man with a horn’, he began to play the trumpet. His first trumpet was from Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, an anti-apartheid Christian priest at St Peter's Secondary School. He then mastered the trumpet and joined Alfred Herbert’s African Jazz Revue.
On 12 May 2018, legendary photographer Sam Nzima passed away at the age of 83 in hospital in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga. Nzima was born in Lillydale a small village in Bushbuck Ridge, Limpopo. He grew up in a farm where his father worked and his family lived. Nzima’s teacher had a camera and he was interested to see pictures coming out from a box, and then he bought himself a small Kodak Box Brownie.
During the school holidays, he used to go to the Kruger National Park and charge people to take their photographs. This legendary photographer is known for taking the picture of Hector Pieterson during the 1976 Soweto uprising. Hector Pieterson was shot by the apartheid police in 1976 when students in Soweto where fighting against the imposition of Afrikaans. Nzima leaves behind his wife, a son, Thulani, and family. He was buried at the Sam Nzima’s legacy museum and cultural village site at Lillydale B (Mabarhule), Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga.
On 24 October 2018, Jabulani Tsambo, who was also known as HHP, passed away at the age of 38. Details of his death were not clear, but reports suggested that it was a possible suicide as he was suffering from depression. Tsambo was one of the iconic Motswako rappers. He was well known as Jabba who released hits including Tswaka, Jabba, Harambe, Mpitse, Music and Lights, Bosso ke Mang and others. Although he did not start the style, Jabulani was considered as a Motswako icon.
Tsambo started his music career with a group called Verbal Assassins. He had international collaborations with people like Omar Retnu, Lutan Fyah and Amerie. Tsambo was married to former television personality and socialite Lerato Sengadi. He was buried at Heroes Acre at the Mmabatho cemetery in Mafikeng, North West.