Activist Nombewu dies

Citizen reporter

The ANC’s Priscilla Nombewu has died, aged 89, at the 1 Military Hospital in Pretoria.

She was an activist from the Eastern Cape, who was a member of the party’s underground struggle, and hid arms, ammunition and guerillas.

The stalwart of the ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) is perhaps best known for her involvement in a 1956 march for women’s rights, at which the phrase “wathint’ abafazi, wathint’ imbokodo” (“You strike a woman, you strike a rock”) was popularised.

On August 9, 1956, more than 20 000 women of all races marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to hand over a petition to then prime minister Hans Strijdom.

Other action she participated in included the Ciskei bus boycott of 1983, the resistance to the GJ Koornhof forced removal Bills and the formation of the Release Nelson Mandela campaign.

She was secretary of the ANC’s consumer boycott structure, as well the first general secretary of the national women’s associations’ border region, which later became the East London women’s associations.

Two of her three children became members of uMkhonto we Sizwe and joined the armed struggle in exile – the South African National Defence Force’s Brigadier-General Siseko Nombewu and Buffalo City municipality councillor Mkhuseli Nombewu.

A memorial service will take place on Saturday at the Nondlwana Methodist Church in Mdantsane, near East London in the Eastern Cape.