Teboho MacDonald Mashinini
| Teboho MacDonald Mashinini | |
|---|---|
| Born |
27 January, 1957 Soweto |
| Died |
1990 Guinea |
| Nationality | South African |
| Spouse(s) | Welma Campbell |
Teboho "Tsietsi" MacDonald Mashinini (born 27 January 1957 in Central Western Jabavu, Soweto, South Africa, died summer, 1990 in Conakry, Guinea) was the primary student leader of the Soweto Uprising that began in Soweto and spread across South Africa in June, 1976.[1]
Life
Mashinini was born in 1957. He was a bright, popular and successful student at Morris Isaacson High School[2] in Soweto where he was the head of the debate team and president of the Methodist Youth Guild.
A move by South Africa's apartheid government to make the white, colonial language Afrikaans an equal mandatory language of education for all South Africans in conjunction with English was extremely unpopular with black, Bantu and English-speaking South African students.
A student himself, Mashinini planned a mass demonstration by students for 16 June 1976.[2] This demonstration which would become known as the Soweto Uprising lasted for three days during which several hundred people were killed, the majority of them black students.
Having been identified as the leader of the uprising by the South African government, Mashinini fled South Africa in exile, first to London then later to various other African countries, including Liberia where he was briefly married to Miss Liberia 1977, Welma Campbell.
He died under mysterious circumstances, possibly of AIDS, possibly of homicide, in the summer of 1990 while in exile in Guinea.[3] His body was repatriated to South Africa on 4 August 1990 where he was interred in Avalon Cemetery. His grave bears the epitaph "Black Power."[4]
Legacy
There is a statue of Teboho Mashinini by Johannes Phokela in the grounds of his old school that was unveiled on 1 May 2010 by Amos Masondo, the Mayor of Johannesburg.[5]
See also
References
- ↑ "Teboho "Tsietsi" Macdonald Mashinini".
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Mecoamere, Victor (27 May 2013). "Naledi High turns 50". Sowetan Live. Retrieved 23 July 2013.
- ↑ "Tsietsi died of AIDS"
- ↑ "The homecoming that wasn't"
- ↑ "Unveiling of the Tsietsi Mashinini statue". joburg.org.za. Retrieved 25 July 2013.
External links
- The African Activist Archive Project website includes a press release Leader of Soweto (South Africa) Uprising to Speak (New York: American Committee on Africa, December 1976).