Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe: “The Suppressed African Revolutionary” Passes On

Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe: “The Suppressed African Revolutionary” Passes On On 27 February 1978, Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe (54) passed on in the Kimberley General Hospital. Sobukwe died of lung complications after having been hospitalised in 1977. His medical doctors requested that he should be granted freedom of movement on humanitarian grounds, as he was banned to Galeshewe Township, Kimberley, but it was turned down by the apartheid authorities. Sobukwe was born in Graaff-Reinet in the Cape Province on 5 December 1924. He attended a Methodist college at Healdtown and later went to study at Fort Hare University. At Fort Hare, where generations of young Black South Africans were exposed to politics, he joined the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) in 1948. The organisation had been established on the university campus by Godfrey Pitje, who later became its president. In 1949, Sobukwe was elected as the first president of the Fort Hare Students’ Representative Council (SRC), where he proved himself to be an effective orator. In 1950, Sobukwe was appointed as a teacher at a high school in Standerton, a position he lost when he spoke out in favour of the Defiance Campaign in 1952. He was, however, reinstated. During this period he was not directly involved with mainstream ANC activities, but still held the position of secretary of the organisation’s branch in Standerton. In 1954, after moving to Johannesburg Sobukwe became a lecturer of African Studie