Local Pastor, Reverend Tulane Msibi and Dr M Msibi
Honourable Minister of Social Development, Ms Edna Molewa
Honourable Member of Provincial Legislature, Ms Joyce Mocumi
Honourable Member of Provincial Legislature, Mr Mfundisi
Reverend Tshabalala from the Assembly of God
Women’s Missionary Society’s president and the executive committee
The church steward board
Bojanala Platinum district municipality, Councillor Violet Molotsi
Station Commissioner, Director Eunice Makgwane
Members of the ANC Women’s League
Member of the United Christian Democratic Party (UCDP) Women’s League
Honourable Members of Parliament
Local councillors of Ga-Rankuwa
The congregation of Mokone temple
Fellow Christians
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
It gives us great pleasure to be in the Mokone temple on this beautiful Sunday morning, together to celebrate the historic Founder’s Day of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. As the African National Congress Women’s League (ANCWL), we take great pride in the fact that you have chosen to dedicate this important Day in the life of the AME Church, to the memory of one of Africa’s finest leaders and stalwarts, the ANC veteran, Charlotte Maxeke.
Accordingly, we thank you most warmly for extending this invitation to us. We have come to associate the social role of Mother Charlotte Maxeke with the noble struggles of the people of South Africa against all forms of oppression and exploitation to the extent that her role in the spiritual life of our nation could easily evade our collective memory.
Born Charlotte Makgomo Manye, on 7 April, in 1874, at Ramokgopa in Polokwane (then Petersburg), Mother Maxeke, a very young girl at the time, travelled to England, Canada and later to the United States with a group of singers. Sechaba, one of the ANC’s publications in exile, tells us that “she had a lovely deep voice”, I guess that was the very reason for her passion for music and for a church life. Of importance though, it was during that time that she received an opportunity to study in the United States of America.
Her association with the AME Church gathered strength during her years as a student at the Wilberforce University in Cleveland, Ohio, where she completed a Bachelor of Science degree in 1905 at a time when it was inconceivable for African women to attain such university qualifications, more so, in the field of science. This goes to show that the woman we are celebrating today is indeed a true leader with many talents.
Charlotte Maxeke’s correspondence with Reverend M Mokone of the Ethiopian Church in Pretoria contributed to the founding of the AME Church in South Africa, in 1896. Of course, you would know this much better than I do. On her return to South Africa, she founded the Wilberforce Institute with her husband, Rev Marshall Maxeke, which was later to become one of the leading Transvaal high schools for Africans (Sechaba, 1980).
This dynamic South African who gave us the very content of today’s Founder’s Day Celebration, was elected by the AME Church, the President of the Women’s Missionary Society. Accordingly, in the tradition of Bishop Richard Allen, who was born in 1760 on 14 February, and founded the AME Church in 1816, Charlotte Maxeke’s life was guided and shaped by the burning desire to satisfy the basic needs of the African people.
True to the mission of the AME Church, in South Africa, Mme Maxeke gave her life to the noble struggle whose ultimate goal was to deliver food to the hungry, clothes for the naked, shelter for the homeless, jobs for the jobless, and care for those languishing in prisons, hospitals and nursing homes.
Within the liberation movement, during long and bitter decades of struggles against political and women’s oppression, many came to regard her as a “fabulous woman” with magical and boundless power. In 1918, this pioneer who bestrode apartheid South Africa like a colossus in spite of the repressive and racist laws that were imposed on “native life in South Africa” founded the Bantu Women’s League, popularly known as “the African Women’s League”.
One important fact we should not lose sight of as we celebrate her memory, is that during her tenure as President of the African Women’s League, the forerunner of the ANC Women’s League, Mother Charlotte Maxeke led a delegation to the then Prime Minister better to address the vexed question of passbooks for women in the Free State. Her multiple talents are discernable also in the support she extended, around 1920, to the early efforts of Comrade Clement Kadalie to launch a national trade union movement for Africans.
The Bantu Women’s League wasted no time in compiling a list of grievances of women farm workers that was submitted to the Industrial Commercial Workers Union soon after its formation. During this Founders Day, we have good reason to celebrate this rare germ. Giants of the African National Congress and the Women’s League, like Charlotte Maxeke, lay the foundation for the fruits of freedom which today we are reaping. It is through their noble efforts that the women and men of this country are celebrating 20 Years of Baba Madiba’s release from prison.
The ideals of the epoch of reconciliation and nation building popularised by Ntate Mandela during his Presidency, constituted the very motifs of the speeches and public interventions of Mme Maxeke. In one of her popular addresses, called “Social Conditions of African Women and Girls”, delivered in 1930 at the Conference of European and Bantu Christian Student Associations held at Fort Hare University, Mme Maxeke called for unity and equality among women and men and among black and white people of this country. Her Christian ethos, of course, permeated her public utterances and her intellectual engagement. This is what she told the conference at Fort Hare University:
“If you definitely and earnestly set out to lift women and children up in the social life of the Bantu, you will find the men will benefit, and thus the whole community, both white and black. Johannesburg is, to my knowledge, a great example of endeavour for the uplift of the Bantu woman, but we must put all our energies into this task if we would succeed.
“What we want is more cooperation and friendship between the two races, and more definite display of real Christianity to help us in the solving of these riddles. Let us try to make our Christianity practical” (Maxeke, in Legacy of Freedom, 2005: 51).
It is in this context of her rare qualities, that in December 1935, at a meeting of the All African Convention, Dr AB Xuma, later to become the President-General of the ANC, characterised Mme Charlotte Maxeke as “the mother of African freedom” (Sechaba, 1980).
Professor Jabavu of Fort Hare University described her as “one of the best known figures in public life in South Africa” (Sechaba, 1980). To her credit, most of the ideals and the values she stood for, constituted the cornerstone of the “Women’s Charter” which was adopted by the Federation of South African Women in Johannesburg, in April 1954.
Our President Jacob Zuma, in his July 2009 birthday Message to Madiba, placed her in the league of revolutionary cadres of a high calibre. He said:
“As the ANC we are very proud to have produced leaders of the highest calibre for the nation, from the generation of Pixley ka Isaka Seme, to that of Oliver Reginald Tambo, Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela, from Charlotte Maxeke to Lillian Ngoyi and Helen Joseph, from Yusuf Dadoo to Braam Fischer.
“All of them have taught us that we have to put the country and its people first above personal interest. They taught us volunteerism and that service to humanity, especially to the vulnerable, oppressed and marginalised, was the greatest contribution anyone could ever make in their lifetime”.
To the President’s list of heroines, we must add Mme Albertina Sisulu, Ma Bertha Gxowa, Dorothy Nyembe, Ellen Khuzwayo, Adelaide Tambo, Florence Mkhize, Winnie Mandela and many others. Over the years, Charlotte Maxeke, even beyond her life and times, continued to occupy a pride of place within the African National Congress, inside and outside the borders of her motherland. In the 1980s, the ANC women’s section named a nursery in Morogoro, in Tanzania, the Charlotte Maxeke Child Care Centre.
Brothers and sisters, comrades and compatriots; allow me to put on my other cap, of Correctional Services Deputy Minister. For, in this capacity, there is this other important aspect of Charlotte Maxeke that I dare not fail to bring to this special occasion. Doing so, might even be career limiting. Charlotte Maxeke, in her extremely busy schedule, still found time to pay particular attention to the plight of women in apartheid prisons.
She visited women in the country’s prisons and assisted them to find work on release. As we are trying persistently to do, through our project called Imbeleko, Mme Maxeke religiously took care of the needs of children whose mothers were locked behind the bars. Her overall struggles for a better life for the African people was on the whole, also meant to address the very causes of crime and injustice in the country.
Yvonne Mokgoro has reminded us in her 2006 memorial lecture on Charlotte Maxeke, that her portrait, found in the corridors of the Constitutional Court, “is one of a group of five women regarded as leading forces in the struggle against injustice in South Africa, these are: Charlotte Maxeke, Virginia Mngoma, Caroline Motsoaledi, Jenny Schoon and Mamphela Ramphele”. Perhaps, this could probably be the best time for us to consider renaming some of the female sections of our Correctional Centres, particularly given our resolve to symbolically convert these Centres, from militarised institutions with what Madiba called a “primitive heart” (1994:501), into humane rehabilitation centres.
In honour of this finest ANC giant and stalwart, Mother Charlotte Maxeke, herself a President of the Women’s League for many years, the ANC Women’s League recommits itself to the deepening of the struggle against all social ills which continue unabatedly to destroy precious lives of many women and girl children.
Your decision to celebrate Mother Charlotte Maxeke, an ANC activist, a social worker, a journalist, a leader in the AME Church, a thinker and an African teacher par excellence, testifies to your clear understanding of the role of the church in society, which is to be of service to the people.
Today South Africa is being dignified as it will be hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup in 116 days, all because of people like Charlotte Maxeke who showed the international community that South Africa can indeed do more. As a country, and as a time tested liberation movement, we have more reasons to celebrate. We are currently working tirelessly to prepare for the ANC centenary celebrations in 2012 at which the values of our heroes and heroines will be revisited so as to inform our young people about the rich traditions and culture of the African National Congress.
On behalf of our President, Ms Angie Motshekga, and members of the ANC Women’s League, we wish you a memorable Founder’s Day and a happy Valentine’s Day!
I am tempted to leave you with a brilliant portrait of Charlotte Maxeke as presented by Yvonne Mokgoro, who said that: “Charlotte Maxeke was a woman who, in every aspect of her life, was expressive of her extraordinary intellect, her diligence, competence, her audacity, assertiveness, patriotism, determination, courage and dedication to the highest ideals”.
It is these virtues that must guide our forward march as we turn 2010 into the year of action dedicated to the delivery of quality services to all our people. In the memory of Mme Maxeke, the AME Church has a responsibility to improve the lives of our people, in all fronts, be it in the area of education, health, or in stepping up the fight against women oppression. I challenge all of us to take a leaf from the life of Mme Maxeke.
Malibongwe!
Issued by: Department of Correctional Services
14 February 2010
