Wits honours Robert Sobukwe
Robert Sobukwe will forever have a place at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits).
The university is renaming a building after the late, former Wits lecturer and anti-apartheid struggle activist.
It will rename the Central Block - where the Great Hall is - to the Robert Sobukwe Block.
Sobukwe, the founder and first president of the Pan Africanist Congress waged a fearless struggle against the apartheid government.
He is celebrated for his role in initiating and leading the anti-pass law protests of 21 March 1960 - a day remembered for the Sharpeville Massacre.
Today, we commemorate it as Human Rights Day.
Wits will host a plaque unveiling ceremony on Monday.
Wits chancellor, Justice Dikgang Moseneke and Wits Vice-Principal, Professor Tawana Kupe will preside over the ceremony and unveil a plaque.
The plaque for the renaming of @WitsUniversity Central Block to #RobertSobukwe Block unveiled by Moseneke & Sobukwe’s son,Dini Sobukwe. SM pic.twitter.com/ysEex6sXQZ
— Jacaranda News (@JacaNews) September 18, 2017
Moseneke delivered the keynote address. Listen to it here:
Remembering Robert Sobukwe
Sobukwe became a political activist at the University of Fort Hare in the late 1940s. In the 1950s, he became one of the foremost intellectuals of Pan-Africanism.
He was a lecturer in African Studies at Wits where he also completed an Honours dissertation, titled "A collection of Xhosa Riddles".
Sobukwe fought for the emancipation of Africans and remains one of those who gave up their lives for a just cause without being adequately recognised. After his arrest on 21 March 1960, he was sentenced to three years in prison.
He refused legal help and would not appeal the sentence, on the grounds that the court was not a court of fair and equal law and justice.
Sobukwe was considered such a threat to the apartheid regime that a special law was passed allowing them to arbitrarily extend his detention.
The Sobukwe Clause, as it became known, was only ever applied to Robert Sobukwe, and kept him in prison on Robben Island, where he was isolated from other political prisoners, for nine years.
He completed a degree in economics during his time on Robben Island.
After his release in 1969, he was banished to Kimberley and kept under house arrest.
During his house arrest, Sobukwe completed a law degree and was eventually permitted to open a law firm three years before his passing in 1978.
