Ex-PAC president is immortalised at last
FOR DECADES, the role of former PAC second president Zeph Mothopeng in the liberation Struggle remained largely unrecognised.
Although the house in which he spent his married life in Orlando West, Soweto, has been preserved for posterity by the national order, this has been seen as minimal recognition.
Mothopeng’s grave, which he shares with his wife and Struggle matriarch Urbania Mothopeng, in Soweto’s Avalon Cemetery, has nothing to distinguish it.
But all this will change when the City of Joburg names Pela Street in Orlando West after Mothopeng tomorrow. The street is also where the Hector Pieterson Museum is situated.
City of Joburg head of immovable heritage Eric Itzin said the event would take place outside Mothopeng’s house at the corner of Maseko and Zeph Mothopeng streets at 10am.
“This is the house where he began his political activities in the 1940s. The house is also situated near the Holy Cross Anglican Church, where he was a choirmaster. It is also not far to Orlando High School, where he taught maths.
“Pela Street is also the same street where the 1976 students, on instructions of Mothopeng, became involved in running battles with the police.”
Mayoral committee member Nonhlanhla Sifumba was expected to lay a wreath of honour for Mothopeng, and PAC stalwart and academic Professor Sipho Shabalala to deliver a memorial lecture at Uncle Tom’s Hall next to the house.
The family have welcomed the city’s gesture.
Mothopeng’s son John said they had been waiting a long time – since negotiations began in 2014.
In his earlier years, Mothopeng joined the ANC Youth League and was later part of the group of Africanists who broke away from the ANC in 1958 to form the PAC. He became its first national chair in April 1959.
In 1960, the serial political prisoner was initially arrested in Soweto for his role in the antipass campaign alongside his predecessor Robert Sobukwe.
Mothopeng was instrumental in planning the 1976 student revolt, which led to his arrest in 1976. He was sentenced to 30 years in jail. He was elected president of the PAC in 1986. He was released from Robben Island in November 1988 and died on October 23, 1990.