Teboho MacDonald Mashinini
Encyclopedia
Teboho "Tsietsi" MacDonald Mashinini (born January 27, 1957 in Central Western Jabavu, Soweto
, South Africa
, died summer, 1990 in Conakry, Guinea) was the primary student leader of the Soweto Uprising that began in Soweto and spread across South Africa in June, 1976.
Mashinini was a bright, popular and successful student at Morris Isaacson High School in Soweto where he was the head of the debate team and president of the Methodist Youth Guild.
A move by South Africa's apartheid government to make the white, colonial language Afrikaans
an equal mandatory language of education for all South Africans in conjunction with English was extremely unpopular with black, Bantu
and English-speaking
South African students.
A student himself, Mashinini planned a mass demonstration by students for June 16, 1976. This demonstration which would become known as the Soweto Uprising lasted for three days during which several hundred people were killed, the majority of them black students.
Having been identified as the leader of the uprising by the South African government, Mashinini fled South Africa in exile, first to London
then later to various other African countries, including Liberia
where he was briefly married to Miss Liberia 1977, Welma Campbell.
He died under mysterious circumstances, possibly of AIDS
, possibly of homicide
, in the summer of 1990 while in exile in Guinea. His body was repatriated to South Africa on August 4, 1990 where he was interred in Avalon Cemetery
. His grave bears the epitaph "Black Power."
Soweto
Soweto is a lower-class-populated urban area of the city of Johannesburg in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for South Western Townships...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, died summer, 1990 in Conakry, Guinea) was the primary student leader of the Soweto Uprising that began in Soweto and spread across South Africa in June, 1976.
Mashinini was a bright, popular and successful student at Morris Isaacson High School in Soweto where he was the head of the debate team and president of the Methodist Youth Guild.
A move by South Africa's apartheid government to make the white, colonial language Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
an equal mandatory language of education for all South Africans in conjunction with English was extremely unpopular with black, Bantu
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages constitute a traditional sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages...
and English-speaking
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
South African students.
A student himself, Mashinini planned a mass demonstration by students for June 16, 1976. This demonstration which would become known as the Soweto Uprising lasted for three days during which several hundred people were killed, the majority of them black students.
Having been identified as the leader of the uprising by the South African government, Mashinini fled South Africa in exile, first to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
then later to various other African countries, including Liberia
Liberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
where he was briefly married to Miss Liberia 1977, Welma Campbell.
He died under mysterious circumstances, possibly of AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
, possibly of homicide
Homicide
Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...
, in the summer of 1990 while in exile in Guinea. His body was repatriated to South Africa on August 4, 1990 where he was interred in Avalon Cemetery
Avalon Cemetery
Avalon Cemetery is one of the largest graveyards in South Africa. It was opened in 1972, during the height of apartheid, as a graveyard exclusively for blacks. More than 300,000 people are buried on its , the graves less than two feet apart. By 2010 the cemetery is expected to be at capacity,...
. His grave bears the epitaph "Black Power."