Mthuli ka Shezi (1947–1972Shezi's Order of Luthuli Award
from the South African Government Information website
from

South African History Online The South African History Project (2001-2004) was established and initiated by Professor Kader Asmal, former Minister of Education in South Africa. This initiative followed after the publication of the Manifesto on Values, Education and Democra ...

) was a South African playwright and political activist. He was a student activist when he attended the

University of Zululand The University of Zululand or UniZulu is the only comprehensive tertiary educational institution north of the Tugela River in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Its new status is in accordance with South Africa's National Plan for Higher Education ...

, and in 1972 he was elected the first vice president of the

Black People's Convention The Black People's Convention (BPC) was a national coordinating body for the Black Consciousness movement of South Africa. Envisaged as a broad-based counterpart to the South African Students' Organisation, the BPC was active in organising resis ...

. His writing reflected the struggle of recovering African identity in colonial and post-colonial societies, a topic which reflects his involvement in Steve Biko's

Black Consciousness Movement The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was a grassroots anti-Apartheid activist movement that emerged in South Africa in the mid-1960s out of the political vacuum created by the jailing and banning of the African National Congress and Pan Afri ...

as well as the influence of

Frantz Fanon Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961), also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon, was a French West Indian psychiatrist, and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have b ...

. In December 1972, Shezi died when he was pushed in front of a moving train at

Germiston Germiston, also known as kwaDukathole, is a small city in the East Rand region of Gauteng, South Africa, administratively forming part of the City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality since the latter's establishment in 2000. It functions a ...

station after coming to the defense of African women being drenched with water by a white station cleaner. He posthumously received the

Order of Luthuli The Order of Luthuli is a South African honour. It was instituted on 30 November 2003, and is granted by the president of South Africa, for contributions to South Africa in the following fields: (i) the struggle for democracy, (ii) building democ ...

for his "political leadership, outstanding contribution to the performing arts, and activism against apartheid." He became a symbol for the struggle of black South Africans against the

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

regime.

Quote

"I am black/ Black like my mother/ Black like the sufferers/ Black like the continent" - from the play ''Shanti'' published in 1972''Theatre Matters: Performance and Culture on the World Stage'' edited by Richard Boon, Jane Plastow, David Bradby. Cambridge University Press (1998) p. 55

References

South African dramatists and playwrights Anti-apartheid activists Assassinated activists 1947 births 1972 deaths Assassinated South African people People murdered in South Africa University of Zululand alumni 20th-century dramatists and playwrights {{AntiApartheid-activist-stub