Solomon Mahlangu

Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu was born on the tenth of July 1956 in Doornkop, in the Middelburg district of the former Eastern Transvaal, today part of Mpumalanga. Raised largely by his mother, Martha, a domestic worker, he grew up in Mamelodi on the outskirts of Pretoria, where he attended Mamelodi High School. He was a pupil there, in the higher standards, when the Soweto uprising of June 1976 swept the country and turned a generation of young people toward the liberation struggle.

Like thousands of his peers, Mahlangu left South Africa in the wake of 1976. He made his way through Mozambique to Angola, where he trained as a soldier of uMkhonto weSizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress, among the cadres known as the June 16 Detachment. In June 1977 he re-entered the country with two comrades. A confrontation with police in Johannesburg left two civilians dead, shot by another man; Mahlangu himself fired no fatal shot.

He was nonetheless charged under the doctrine of "common purpose" and, though the court accepted he had not done the killing, was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. His appeals were refused. On the sixth of April 1979, at the age of twenty-two, Solomon Mahlangu was hanged at Pretoria Central Prison, becoming one of the youngest and most enduring martyrs of the anti-apartheid cause.

His name was carried far beyond his short life: the ANC founded the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College in Tanzania, and a freedom square and statue rose in his honour in Mamelodi. His parting words endure as a testament to a generation: "Tell my people that I love them. They must continue the fight. My blood will nourish the tree that will bear the fruits of freedom." May he be remembered with honor.