Nationality South African Other names Mam Flo | Name Florence Mkhize Died July 10, 1999 | |
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Known for anti-apartheid activist | ||
Florence Grace Mkhize (1932-July 7, 1999) was an anti-apartheid activist. Mkhize was also involved in trade unions in South Africa, organizing for the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU).
Biography
Mkhize was born in 1932 in rural Umzinto. After school, she moved to Durban where she married her husband Amos Mswane in the 1950s. Mkhize began fighting apartheid and took part in the Defiance Campaign in 1952. A photo of her burning her pass book was taken by Ranjith Kally and is now exhibited as both art and a record of that struggle. She was subsequently banned. Despite the ban on her political activity, she used her place of work, a sewing factory, to communicate and organise. In 1954, she became one of the founding members of the Federation of South African Women. Mkhize organized women to participate in the Women's March in 1956, but was not able to go herself when the bus she was traveling on to reach Pretoria was turned back by police. She was a participant in the Potato Boycott in 1957. In 1968, she was banned again, this time for five years under the Suppression of Communism Act.
In the 1970s, Mkhize was involved with the Release Mandela Campaign and used her home to hide others from security forces. Mkhize helped raise money in the 1980s for the Pambili High School, which helped educate students who were refused education because of their parents' political involvement.
In the 1994 elections, she became a councillor for ward 75 which she held until her death.
In 1998 the African National Congress (ANC) Women’s League awarded her their bravery medal. In 1999 Nelson Mandela awarded her the South African Military Gold Medal. Durban's city centre municipal offices were renamed in her honor. In 2006 the South African Ministry of the Environment commissioned an environmental protection vessel, the Florence Mkhize.