Minister Naledi Pandor: Charlotte Maxeke African Women Leadership Awards

Thank you for gracing us with your presence at this auspicious occasion at which we would like to recognise and honour exceptional African Women leaders whose achievements, mentorship, influence, and contributions have advanced Africa’s development in various sectors of society. Tonight’s awards will also recognise exceptional contributions to the advancement of gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Many of the heroes of our liberation movement are gallant women whose stories are often not told or acknowledged for their contribution. Gertrude Shope, Helen Joseph, Albertina Sisulu, Lilian Ngoyi, and Ruth Mompati are just some of the women upon whose shoulders we stand.

Mme Charlotte Mannya Maxeke, whose legacy we honour each year at this awards dinner, was born 152 years ago, and is often considered the mother of black freedom and a pioneer of women’s education and emancipation. Maxeke was an iconic leader – a woman of great courage and fortitude, and a true daughter of the soil. By memorialising her life, our goal is to inspire generations of women who will embody her values in a meaningful way.

Before I elaborate on the inspiring life and achievements of Mme Maxeke, I would like to draw your attention to some of the other great African women leaders who lived around the same time her, who are often only mentioned in passing in history textbooks, European documents or through oral histories and artworks. The turbulent years following West and Central Africa’s initial contact with Europe were marked by the emergence of women revered for their formidable political skills and social vision. We know of these women—women such as Ana Nzinga, queen of Ndongo; Dona Beatriz, Kongo prophet; and Idia, queen mother of Benin.

Perhaps more well-known was the warrior queen Yaa Asantewaa – queen of the prosperous Ashanti Empire, in now modern-day Ghana. As queen, she was the official protector of the empire’s most sacred object, the Golden Stool. Made of solid gold and believed to house the soul of the nation, the stool represented the royal and divine throne of the empire. When British troops invaded in 1886, and demanded possession of the sacred object, Asantewaa refused. Instead, she led an army against them. “I shall call upon my fellow women. We will fight the white men. We will fight until the last of us falls in the battlefields,” Yaa Asantewaa had said.

For months, starting in 1900, Asantewaa’s troops laid siege to the British occupying forces, who very nearly collapsed. Only after the British brought in several thousand additional troops and pounds of artillery, were they able to defeat Asantewaa’s army. Asantewaa fought alongside her people until the very end and was captured and exiled to the Seychelles until her death in 1921. Her bravery and resistance in spite of the impossible odds have made her one of history’s most famous warrior queens to this day.

Last year the American feature film The Woman King premiered – which was produced right here in South Africa. The film is about the Agojie all-female warrior unit that protected the West African kingdom Dahomey during the 17th to 19th centuries. Located in present-day Benin, the kingdom of Dahomey was facing French troops in the 1890s. As the French army attempted to penetrate the territory of King Behanzin, with the aim of overthrowing him, they came up against an unusual defence: the Amazons of Dahomey. On their return from war, French legionnaires described the “courage and audacity” of the fearless Agojie women warriors.

Our very own Mme Maxeke did not earn her fame on the battlefield, but through her pen and political activism. She was a visionary, intellectual, an internationalist, a teacher, and a fearless servant of her people. Maxeke the internationalist travelled to at least two continents at the turn of the nineteenth century when travelling abroad was both slow and difficult. This gave her an upper hand and unparalleled exposure to other cultures and a broader view of the world beyond the limitations of South Africa.

In the context of the conduct of international relations today, she is an early proponent of people-to-people diplomacy. Through the African Jubilee Choir tour, she went on to the US, she exchanged ideas with her contemporaries, shared information, used art to bring South Africa to the world, and used other aspects of culture in order to foster mutual understanding. Maxeke also worked with suffragists both in Europe and the US during this time.

In 1894 she stayed in the US and pursued her studies at the Wilberforce University in Cleveland, Ohio. Her studies made it possible for her to be groomed by an American sociologist, civil rights activist, and a Pan-Africanist W E B Du Bois who contributed immensely in shaping her outlook of the world. In 1901 she graduated with a BSc Degree, becoming the first woman in Southern Africa to graduate from a university.

Maxeke returned to South Africa to educate her people and became an important weapon for empowerment. Learning from her own experience abroad, she dedicated her life to the upliftment of others as well as the struggle for liberation of black South Africans. Maxeke was a fierce opponent of the dompas for black women and men and helped to organise the anti-pass movement in Bloemfontein. In 1913, Maxeke led the first women’s march in Bloemfontein against the extension of passbooks for women and led a delegation to Prime Minister Louis Botha to discuss the issue of passes for women.

Maxeke was not afraid to enter traditional male spaces and challenge the status quo. She was the only woman in the room at the founding meeting of the SANNC, (now ANC) at Methodist Church in Waaihoek in Bloemfontein on the 8th of January 1912. She sat there quietly while her participation was being discussed, despite being more intellectually advanced than most men in that room.

In 1918 she co-founded the Bantu Women’s League and became its first President, later arousing public opinion against the disgusting practice of medical inspection of black women before entering domestic service.  Maxeke was also involved in protests on the Witwatersrand about low wages and participated in the formation of the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union in 1920.

Maxeke saw education for Africans as a vehicle to liberation. She was asked by the Ministry of Education to testify before several government commissions in Johannesburg on matters concerning African education. She taught at a primary and secondary school she co-founded called Wilberforce Institute in Evaton, in the Vaal, which still exists today. Maxeke is the embodiment of what an empowered woman can achieve for her people, and an excellent example of what education can do for a girl child in Africa and elsewhere in the world.

Maxeke was a Social Worker and Native Welfare Officer and served her people without funds, and for no pay. Her opinions and recommendations were sought by the State and, in many cases, she succeeded in getting suspended sentences for her clients. She eventually set up an employment agency for Africans in Johannesburg and worked with young people who were in conflict with the law.

While being the first black woman in the many spaces she operated in, she understood that for meaningful representation of women, she needed to rally other women to amplify their voices in the struggle for gender equality. We salute the ethos that Charlotte Maxeke stood for of human solidarity, compassion, and sacrifice for the common good, as well as a people-centred approach to development, and self-reliance.

To honour the legacy of this trailblazer, as DIRCO we have developed a bold, transformative, and concrete program that will anchor South Africa’s contribution to the Global Accelerated Plan for Gender Equality. This program is called the Charlotte Maxeke African Women’s Economic Justice and Rights Initiative, which was launched in 2021. The initiative is being implemented through six flagship programs, aimed at making a real impact on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

South Africa recognises that while more efforts have gone towards safeguarding the civil and political rights of women, the economic rights of women and girls have largely been neglected. Through the implementation of this initiative, South Africa seeks to mobilise the global community to support women’s leadership across all the action coalitions of the Generation Equality Forum. The focus is on economic justice and rights through education, training and mentorship for women and youth, as well as creating opportunities in economic participation, networking, diplomacy, and trade.

One program of the DIRCO initiative is the training of women leaders from various sectors of society on Conflict Resolution, Mediation and Negotiation. These women then join the Gertrude Shope Women Mediators Network. Moving from the premise that peace is a precursor to development, it is pivotal that DIRCO complements its implementation of the Women Peace and Security Agenda with a programme aimed at the economic empowerment of women.

We can all learn important lessons from the life of Charlotte Maxeke, and I would like us to remember her wise words when she said to her compatriots:

“This work is not for yourself, kill that spirit of self, and do not live above your people but live with them. If you rise, bring someone with you”.

Let us also recall the words of another great woman who came after her, Mme Albertina Sisulu, who said,

“We are each required to walk our own road and then stop, assess what we have learnt and share it with others. It is only in this way that the next generation can learn from those who have walked before them. We can do no more than tell our story. Then it is up to them to make of it what they will.”

I encourage each of our award recipients tonight to share their story with the next generation so that they can be inspired by your accomplishments and strive to be women of excellence.