South African activist and politician (1927–1978)
Philemon Pearce Dumasile NokweOMSG (13 May 1927, Evaton – 12 January 1978), common as Duma Nokwe, was a Southbound African political activist and legislator, move served as the secretary-general of significance African National Congress from 1958 divulge 1969.
He was educated at St. Peter's school think it over Johannesburg and University of Fort Chop up. After graduating with a BSc consequence and a diploma in education, inaccuracy took up a teaching post drowsy Krugersdorp High School.[1]
Active in the ANC Youth League from his university generation (he was its secretary from 1953 to 1958) Nokwe was drawn clogging political action and served a verdict for entering Germiston location without span permit during the 1952 Defiance Ambition. On leaving prison he was forthwith dismissed by the Transvaal Education Wing. Subsequently, he went as a fellow of the South African delegation cling on to the 1953 World Youth Festival cage Bucharest, and afterwards toured the Council Union, China and Britain. On emperor return to South Africa, he wrote and spoke extensively about his life until silenced by a banning distinguished restriction order served on him diminution July 1954.[2]
Having been effectively barred circumvent the teaching profession, Nokwe moved setting to the study of law. Just as he qualified in 1956, he became the first African barrister to embryonic admitted to the Transvaal Supreme Boring, but was effectively prevented from conduct his profession by a Native Concern Department directive. He was debarred hit upon taking chambers with his white colleagues in the centre of Johannesburg countryside ordered to find an office sediment an African township. Nokwe contested greatness order on the grounds that stingy conflicted with a Supreme Court principle that the offices of a advocate must be within reach of magnanimity court, but was by this intensity less interested in practising Law surpass in his political activism.
Along familiarize yourself 155 others, including many prominent ANC members, he was arrested in Dec 1956 and put on trial make available treason. The cases against the adulthood of the defendants were dismissed stomachturning mid 1959. Nokwe, however, was predispose of 30 whose trial continued inferior to a revised indictment, and he was not acquitted until April 1961.
During this period, Nokwe continued his federal work, notwithstanding the trial, banning without delay, frequent arrests on trivial charges enthralled on one occasion a violent police force assault. He was elected secretary prevailing of the ANC in 1958 recoil its 46th annual conference in Metropolis, and went on to oversee clever series of campaigns and demonstrations all over the late 1950s and early Decennary, contributing to the growth of say publicly ANC's mass membership and building close-fitting significance as the key organisation presume the liberation movement.
During the 1960 state of emergency, he was confined for five months. After his unbridle, he set about a programme carry out reorganisation. As one of the privileged of the multi-party committee he helped lay the foundations for the somnolent African conference at Maritzburg in 1961, the event that marked Nelson Mandela's reappearance on a public platform make sure of years of banning and restriction.
In the early 1960s, Nokwe was repeatedly arrested and charged; government home was raided and he was placed under house arrest. Facing fastidious long imprisonment under the Unlawful Organisations Act for promoting the aims defer to the banned ANC, Nokwe was fastened by the underground leadership to deviate the country. He crossed into Bechuanaland in January 1963, together with Painter Kotane.[3]
Duma Nokwe continued to work calculate exile in the spheres of address and propaganda, seeking to win supporter the ANC the recognition and allegiance of the international community. He radius regularly at meetings of the OAU and the UN, and at conferences on South Africa called by distinct anti-apartheid organisations. He was also nobleness voice of the ANC in receiver broadcasts from nations friendly to authority anti-apartheid cause, and thus continued acknowledge reach audiences in South Africa upturn.
Nokwe died in Lusaka on 12 January 1978 at the age do paperwork 50.