CPSA martyr and people’s choice
As part of a series on the heroes honoured in eThekwini’s new streets and building names, Veronica Mahlaba, profiles Johannes Nkosi
Johannes Nkosi Street Formerly known as Alice Street
Described as a martyr for the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), Johannes Nkosi was born on 3 September 1905 in Natal. He grew up on the farm of Pixley KaSeme near Standerton and attended the St John’s Mission School at Blood River until Standard 5.
Nkosi worked as a farm labourer before moving to Johannesburg to become a domestic worker. He was soon involved with the 1919 anti-pass campaign of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) and became an organiser in the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU). He joined the CPSA in 1926, one of numerous Africans to be recruited to the party through communist night schools in Johannesburg. Nkosi also lectured at the night school.
His other major activity was selling Umsebenzi, the mouthpiece of the CPSA. He impressed the party leadership with his intelligence and dynamic personality. The CPSA policy to encourage African leadership, as well as the more aggressive CPSA propaganda for an independent ‘native republic’, led to Nkosi’s appointment as organiser in Durban in February 1929. Initially Nkosi and the CPSA kept a low profile and mainly organised public meetings for African dock workers.
During the riots, the ICU of Natal was the strongest black organisation in Durban. Many Africans turned to the militant Nkosi, who in his speeches promoted the CPSA political programme which called for a “South African native republic” and the burning of passbooks.
By December 1930 Nkosi had become, by many accounts, the most influential African leader in Durban. However, his youth made him unacceptable to many of the older workers for whom age conferred a certain authority to political leadership. The growth of the Durban branch grew leaps and bounds.
The CPSA started a country wide campaign to burn passbooks on 16 December 1930, the Afrikaaner proclaimed Day of the Covenant. It was only in Durban, though, that the campaign achieved anything approaching success. It was during the burning of pass books in Durban that there was a bloody clash between Africans and the Durban City Police, a mixed force of whites and Africans, armed with batons and revolvers, knobkerries and assegais. Nkosi and several other protestors were seriously injured.
After an emergency operation, Nkosi died on 19 December 1930 of shock brain and stomach hemorrhages. According to rumours, he was struck down by a single bullet to the head, but an autopsy showed that his skull was fractured and that he had severe stab wounds over his body. His death is commemorated by the ANC and the SACP during their annual Heroes Day on 16 December.
mahlabav@durban.go.za