Tsala ea Becoana

Zephania Lekoame Mothopeng (10 September 1913 – 23 October 1990) was a South African political activist and member of the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC).

Early Life

Zephania Lekoame Mothopeng was born near Vrede in Free State and he had five siblings. He was educated at St. Mary's Anglican School, in Daggakraal before he moves to St Chatswold Training College in Ladysmith. Mothopeng matriculated from St. Peters Secondary School at Rosettenville in Johannesburg.

After matriculation he trained as a teacher at Adams College in Kwa-Zulu Natal where he he and his three other colleagues defiantly sat on the seats reserved for Europeans staff members. For this, he and his friends were dismissed but later pardoned. In 1941, after training as a teacher, Mothopeng took up a teaching post at Orlando Secondary School in Soweto.

Political History

Zephania Mothopeng began his struggle against apartheid as a founding member of the African National Congress Youth League in the 1944. He left the ANC because of the rise of the Charterists from 1955 when they took control of the African National Congress. He left the ANC with Robert Sobukwe in 1959 and became a founding member of the Pan-Africanist Congress,(PAC). After forming the PAC, he was at the forefront of their Positive Action campaign against the pass laws. Positive Action was defined by Pan Africanists as the application of non-violent mass action in the form of strikes, boycotts and non-collaboration with the oppressive authorities.

He served as President of the Transvaal Teachers Association in 1950. As a member of the PAC Zephania Mothopeng was arrested several times: first for two years after his 1960 arrest for taking part in the Defiance Campaign.

After his release, he was detained in again 1964 for furthering the aims of a banned organisation, the PAC. His arrest followed a massive police swoop on the PAC underground movement Poqo. Zephania Mothopeng, John Ganya, Mark Shinners and others played a leading role in establishing contact with the external mission of the PAC in Tanzania, recruiting new members to the PAC, establishing underground cells, and sending recruits outside the country to join Poqo in exile.

He spent part of his sentence with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island before being released in 1967.

After his release he was banished to Qwaqwa from Soweto for two years.  While in prison, Mothopeng was among those who reported police torture because four other detainees had died in detention.

The Bethal Trial was the only secret political trial ever held in apartheid South Africa He was elected as the president of the PAC while in prison.

He became ill with cancer of the throat while in prison and was released under President F. W. de Klerk in 1989. He rejected calls to join political talks arguing that black people should have all the power Under Mothopeng the PAC refused to join the negotiations on democracy with the Nationalist Party under President F. W. de Klerk as the Pan-Africanist Congress believed that only guerrilla warfare would end white minority rule. After his early release in November 1988, he settled in Soweto but never recovered his health.

Death and Legacy

He was known as the “Lion of Azania . On the 23rd of October 1990, Mothopeng died from chest and lung cancer and pneumonia at 78.

During a ceremony on 22 October 2016, he was honoured with the renaming of Pela Street, close to Vilakazi Street in Orlando West, Soweto, to Zephania Mothopeng Street.

The renaming is in line with the City of Johannesburg’s Policy on the Naming and Renaming of Streets and Other Public Places.  Zephania Mothopeng Street links with the Hector Pieterson Precinct.

Personal Life

On 10 September 1941 Zephania Mothopeng married Urbania Babe Lonake. In 1942, the couple moved into a municipal four roomed house in Orlando West. While in prison, Urbania was out of work because y his wife she suffered from severe arthritis. He is buried with his wife Urbania Mothopeng in Avalon Cemetery