South Africa celebrates 150th anniversary of Charlotte Maxeke’s birth. Born 1871 and died 1939. She is sometimes considered “the mother of black freedom”. This woman fought to defend minorities in the early 20th century. She was one of the founding members of the current presidential party, the ANC, at a congress in 1912. While the struggle against apartheid between 1949 and 1994 dominated the national narrative, Charlotte Maxeke’s life tells another chapter: the roots of a struggle and liberation through education.
From our correspondent in Johannesburg,
“My father did not go to school, but he always encouraged me and my brothers and sisters to make the best of ourselves.”
It is Charlotte Maxeke who turns to us in this reconstruction. Born 1871, daughter of an uneducated black family in rural South Africa. At the end of the 19th century we can talk about obstacles … which it will overcome thanks to education and religion.
The church allows Charlotte to join a choir that performs abroad. In England, she crosses paths with suffragettes, these activists who fight for women’s suffrage. In the USA, Charlotte Maxeke decides to put down her bags and register at the university.
“I became the first black South African to graduate from college. “
What a long way we have come at the age of 30. It is this perseverance that we must draw inspiration from today, states the historian Thozama April-Maduma.
Maxeke’s legacy allows us to imagine the incomprehensible. When you look at her life through the prism of apartheid, it seems impossible for a black woman her age and at this time, and yet she did. It is this ability, this desire, this pursuit of knowledge. “
Rich on this initial trip to the United States, Charlotte Maxeke returned to South Africa to devote herself to others. Minorities, left. She became involved in politics by attending the first congress of the ANC, the ruling party in 1912. In April, President Cyril Ramaphosa “celebrated his determination to succeed in getting an education and in turn to become an educator, a missionary, a social worker, a activist, a communist and an anti-colonial activist. “
Charlotte Maxeke has never been a star and despite some buildings named after her, her story is a bit known. Still, she is a model for Zulaikha Patel, an 18-year-old youth writer and ambassador for the Charlotte Maxeke Institute.
“I see her as a giant, one of the founders of the struggle for liberation in this country. So few people know her, it’s because the place of black women has been eradicated from our history, she explains.
Memories of Charlotte Maxeke’s birth continue throughout the year. A documentary about his life will be uploaded on October 16.
Reconstruction extract from the Charlotte Maxeke-Mannya Institute. Musical excerpts from “The African Choir 1891 Re-imagined” by Philip Miller and Thuthuka Sibisi (2017).
