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South Africa celebrates the 150th anniversary of the birth of Charlotte Maxeke. Born in 1871 and died in 1939. She is sometimes considered the “mother of black freedom”. This woman fought to defend minorities at the start of the 20th century. She was one of the founding members of the current presidential party, the ANC at a congress in 1912. While the history of the struggle against apartheid between 1949 and 1994 dominates the national narrative, the life of Charlotte Maxeke tells another chapter: the roots of a struggle and emancipation through education.
From our correspondent in Johannesburg,
“My father did not go to school, but he always encouraged me and my brothers and my sisters to do the best of ourselves”
It is Charlotte Maxeke who addresses us in this reconstruction. Born in 1871, daughter of an uneducated black family in rural South Africa. For the end of the 19th century, we can speak of 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 right to vote. In the United States, Charlotte Maxeke decides to put down her bags and enroll in university.
“I became the first black South African to graduate from college. “
What a long way to go at the age of 30. It is from this tenacity that we must draw inspiration today, notes the historian Thozama April-Maduma.
“Maxeke’s legacy allows us to imagine the inconceivable. When you look at her life through the prism of apartheid, it seems impossible for a black woman of her age and at this time, and yet she did. It is this capacity, this desire, this quest for knowledge. “
Rich in this initiatory trip to the United States, Charlotte Maxeke returned to South Africa to devote herself to others. Minorities, left behind. She became involved in politics by participating in the first congress of the ANC, the ruling party in 1912. In April, President Cyril Ramaphosa celebrated “Her determination to succeed in order to get an education and in turn become an educator, a missionary, a social worker, an activist, a communist and an anti-colonial activist.” “
Charlotte Maxeke has never been a star and despite a few buildings named after her, her story is little known. Yet she is a model for Zulaikha Patel, 18-year-old youth author and ambassador of the Charlotte Maxeke Institute.
“I see her as a giant, a founding member of the struggles for emancipation in this country. So few people know her, it’s because the place of black women has been eradicated from our history », she explains.
The commemorations around the birth of Charlotte Maxeke continue throughout the year. A documentary on his life will be uploaded on October 16.
Reconstruction extracts issus du Charlotte Maxeke-Mannya Institute.
Musical excerpts from “The African Choir 1891 Re-imagined” by Philip Miller and Thuthuka Sibisi (2017)
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