Florence Mkhize
Florence Mkhize, known affectionately as Mam Flo, was a daring, determined and resourceful anti-apartheid activist and leader in the women’s movement.
Florence Grace Mkhize was born in 1932 in Umzumbe, on the Natal South Coast. From her teenage years, she was determined to be part of the solution, and joined the ANC movement. By the age of 20, Mkhize was at the forefront of the struggle
She joined the 1952 Defiance Campaign under ANC president Albert Luthuli, and was banned by the apartheid government soon after. However, she continued to communicate and organise with her comrades. Mkhize secretly used her place of work, a sewing factory in Durban, as their base.
Her obvious political maturity saw her assigned to ensuring participation in the forming of the Freedom Charter. After all her hard work, the bus on which Mkhize was travelling to Kliptown for the Congress of the People was stopped by the police and turned back to Natal, along with many other buses also on their way to the event.
Mkhize’s dream of a non-racial, non-sexist South Africa made her steadfast in the cause of women’s emancipation, despite living under a banning order throughout the 1950s, and she was highly respected within the ANC Women’s League (ANCWL). Mam Flo, working underground together with Dorothy Nyembe, Helen Joseph and many others, was a key organiser within the Federation of South African Women (Fedsaw) in Natal. Her support gave the new organisation credibility, legitimacy and strategic direction in the province.
She mobilised many women to travel and attend the planned Women’s March on August 9 1956. Again, however, Mkhize and her bus full of delegates travelling to Pretoria was stopped by police and forced to return to Natal.
As a member of the South African Communist Party, she was one of the leaders of the potato and tobacco boycotts against apartheid-colluding industries in 1959. After the ANC was banned in 1960, she continued the fight underground and arranged legal representation for many young people arrested for political activities. She participated in the South African Congress of Trade Unions until its structures were also destroyed by the government. In 1968, she was banned again under the Suppression of Communism Act.
Undeterred, she redirected her organising skills into the Release Mandela campaign in the 1970s. Her family’s home was a hive of activity, often sheltering comrades in hiding from security forces. A community activist at heart, she was tireless in tackling the education and housing crisis in Lamontville, south of Durban, during the in 1980s. She flew to Amsterdam to successfully raise funds for the children of political activists who were refused admission to state schools.
She was also a founding member of the non-aligned United Democratic Front in 1983, as well as organising women across racial lines in the affiliated Natal Organisation of Women.
After South Africa’s first democratic election, and despite her failing health, Mkhize’s community work in Lamontville was unceasing, and she was elected ward councillor in 1996.
The ANCWL awarded Florence Mkhize the Bravery Award in 1998, and Nelson Mandela bestowed a South African Military Gold Medal on her in Durban in 1999, just shortly before she passed away. An HIV facility she had fought to create for the community in Lamontville was finished the following year. — Romi Reinecke was among the 156 arrested and charged with high treason in 1956. However, the charges against her and 60 others were later dropped.
In 1959 she was elected president of the ANCWL in Natal, and in 1961 she was recruited into Umkhonto we Sizwe. In 1962, she became president of the Natal Rural Areas Committee, and participated in the Natal Women’s Revolt.
In 1963, Nyembe was arrested and charged with furthering the aims of the banned ANC. After her release from prison in 1966, she was served with a five-year banning order. In 1968 she was detained with 10 others and charged under the Suppression of Communism Act. In 1969 she was found guilty of harbouring members of Umkhonto we Sizwe and was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment. After her release in 1984, she became active in the Natal Organisation of Women.
In 1994, she became a member of Parliament. She was honoured with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics People’s Friendship Award and the Chief Albert Luthuli prize for her commitment to the liberation struggle. Nyembe died in 1998. — Tracy Burrows
Fatima Seedat
Fatima Seedat was born in 1922 in Strand. Her political awareness was sparked as a teenager as she became aware of the impact of the segregation laws. She joined the Communist Party, and moved to Durban to marry Dawood Seedat, a fellow communist. There she became actively involved in the Natal Indian Congress. Seedat also joined the ANC when the two organisations joined forces. When her first child was just four months old, Seedat was arrested for her role in passive resistance in the Durban area. She was jailed a second time in 1952 for her role in the defiance campaign, and was sentenced to one month’s labour. In 1956 Seedat took part in the march to the Union Buildings. Two days later, she presented at the Second National Conference of Fedsaw. In 1964, Seedat and her husband were banned for five years under the Suppression of Communism Act. Although she remained a member of the ANC after this, her health deteriorated due to diabetes and she died in 2003. — Fatima Asmal