Felicia, Lady Kentridge (née Geffen; 7 August 1930 – 7 June 2015) was a South African lawyer and anti-apartheid activist who co-founded the South African Legal Resources Centre (LRC) in 1979. The LRC represented black South Africans against the apartheid state and overturned numerous discriminatory laws; Kentridge was involved in some of the Centre's landmark legal cases. Kentridge and her husband, the prominent lawyer

Sydney Kentridge Sir Sydney Woolf Kentridge (born 5 November 1922) is a South African-born lawyer, judge and member of the Bar of England and Wales. He practised law in South Africa and the United Kingdom from the 1940s until his retirement in 2013. In South Af ...

, remained involved with the LRC after the end of apartheid, though they moved permanently to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

in the 1980s. In her later years, Kentridge took up painting, and her son

William Kentridge William Kentridge (born 28 April 1955) is a South African artist best known for his prints, drawings, and animated films, especially noted for a sequence of hand-drawn animated films he produced during the 1990s. The latter are constructed by ...

became a famous artist.

Biography

Early life and education

Felicia, Lady Kentridge was born Felicia Nahoma Geffen in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a Megacity#List of megacities, megacity, and is List of urban areas by p ...

in 1930, the younger daughter of a Jewish legal family; her mother was South Africa's first female advocate. Felicia studied law at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

and later the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The university ...

, obtaining her LLB from the latter in 1953. In 1952, while still studying, she married

, a lawyer who went on to defend

Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid activist who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the ...

and other leading anti-apartheid figures in the

Treason Trial The Treason Trial was a trial in Johannesburg in which 156 people, including Nelson Mandela, were arrested in a raid and accused of treason in South Africa in 1956. The main trial lasted until 1961, when all of the defendants were found not gu ...

of 1956.

Anti-apartheid activism

Felicia and Sydney Kentridge were both staunch opponents of apartheid, and Felicia sought to overturn the legal basis for segregation and discrimination in South Africa. In the early 1970s, she visited the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

to study the work of public-interest legal centres, and was inspired to found a similar legal clinic for impoverished South Africans in 1973. In 1979, under the direction of American civil rights attorney

Jack Greenberg Jack Greenberg (December 22, 1924 – October 12, 2016) was an American attorney and legal scholar. He was the Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund from 1961 to 1984, succeeding Thurgood Marshall. He was involved in numerous crucial ...

, she and a group of other prominent anti-apartheid lawyers, including her husband Sydney and Arthur Chaskalson, set up the Legal Resources Centre (modeled on the

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (NAACP LDF, the Legal Defense Fund, or LDF) is a leading United States civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City. LDF is wholly independent and separate from the NAACP. Altho ...

, of which Greenberg was then director-counsel) to campaign for human rights and judicial fairness for black South Africans. Kentridge travelled abroad to gather support for the LRC, and managed to win funding from institutions such as the Carnegie, Ford and

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropy, philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, aft ...

s. She ran the LRC's administrative affairs and also contributed to some of its most important legal victories, helping to overturn discriminatory laws such as the system of mandatory passes for black South Africans. In the early 1980s, Kentridge and her husband moved to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, though she continued to travel to South Africa regularly to assist the LRC. She furthermore worked as the chairperson of the Legal Resources Trust, and helped to set up the Southern Africa Legal Services and Legal Education Project and the British Legal Assistance Trust, which later became part of the Canon Collins Education and Legal Assistance Trust. After the end of apartheid in 1994, Kentridge remained involved with the LRC, which continues to conduct public-interest legal work to the present day. The South African General Bar Council awards an annual prize named in Kentridge's honour, the Sydney and Felicia Kentridge Award, for excellence in public-interest law.

Later life and death

In her later years, Kentridge became a painter, working mostly in

watercolour Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...

. She was eventually diagnosed with

progressive supranuclear palsy Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is a late-onset degenerative disease involving the gradual deterioration and death of specific volumes of the brain. The condition leads to symptoms including loss of balance, slowing of movement, difficulty ...

, which ultimately left her paralysed. She died at home in

Maida Vale Maida Vale ( ) is an affluent residential district consisting of the northern part of Paddington in West London, west of St John's Wood and south of Kilburn. It is also the name of its main road, on the continuous Edgware Road. Maida Vale ...

, London, in June 2015.

Personal life

In 1952, Geffen married

(now Sir Sydney), a South African lawyer and one-time Constitutional Court judge, who survived her. At the time of her death in 2015, she had four children, nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Her eldest son,

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

, is a South African artist, public speaker and filmmaker.

References

External links

* *
Legal Resources Centre official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kentridge, Felicia 1930 births 2015 deaths 20th-century South African lawyers 21st-century South African lawyers Opposition to apartheid in South Africa People from Johannesburg South African emigrants to the United Kingdom South African Jews South African women lawyers University of Cape Town alumni University of the Witwatersrand alumni White South African anti-apartheid activists 20th-century women lawyers 21st-century women lawyers Wives of knights Neurological disease deaths in England Deaths from progressive supranuclear palsy