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On March 21 1960, Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) members went to police stations without passes and asked to be arrested. In Sharpeville, 69 people died in a hail of bullets and a rallying cry echoed around the world.
The government jailed Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, the organiser.
Sobukwe was born in Graaff-Reinet in 1924, the son of humble parents. At the University of Fort Hare in 1948, he joined the ANC Youth League. The brilliant orator was modest and soft-spoken offstage.
He taught isiZulu at Wits University and met the fiery Potlako Leballo. The pair said that black fighters should go it alone, without Indians, coloured people or “white communists”. After being booted out of the ANC, Sobukwe became the founding president of the PAC in 1959.
After the Sharpeville massacre, he was sent to Robben Island, where he was kept apart from the other prisoners. While in prison, he began to study law. Sobukwe’s health began to suffer and he ended up in a hospital in Bellville under a false name.
In 1969, he was sent to Kimberley, where he practised law as a banned person. Sobukwe developed lung cancer and died on February 27 1978, at the age of 53.
He had given his life to the struggle.
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