ANC stalwart September dies

TRIBUTES are pouring in for former trade unionist Reggie September who passed away in Cape Town at the weekend.

September, together with Dr Yusuf Dadoo and Joe Slovo, was one of the first non-Africans to be elected to the ANC’s National Executive Committee.

Yesterday, President Jacob Zuma described him as “one of the staunchest revolutionaries the country has ever seen”.

September was a member of parliament, former executive committee member of the ANC and the South African Communist Party and leader of the erstwhile South African Coloured People Organisation.

The ANC stalwart was born in Wynberg, Cape Town, on June 13 1923. He was the son of Florence, a housewife, and Nicholas September, a carpenter.

He attended Cape Town’s Trafalgar High School, where his opposition to white racism was formed by his teachers, who encouraged political debate on the inequalities suffered by black people.

His political involvement began when he came under the influence of Moses Kotane and James la Guma, two leading communist party leaders in the Western Cape. His first political association was at the tender age of 15, when he joined the National Liberation League led by Cissie Gool and La Guma. He eventually became a member of its executive committee.

September eventually became a full-time trade unionist, and he organised textile workers in Port Elizabeth and Cape Town in the 1940s.

When the government threatened to take the vote away from coloured people, he helped to organise the Franchise Action Council and served as its secretary. — Sapa and SA History Online