Mamphela Ramphele

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Mamphela Ramphele bigraphy, stories - South African activist

Mamphela Ramphele : biography

28 December 1947 –

Mamphela Aletta Ramphele is a South African politician, a former activist against apartheid, a medical doctor, an academic and businesswoman. She was the life partner of Steve Biko, with whom she had two children. She is a former Vice-Chancellor at the University of Cape Town and a one-time Managing Director at the World Bank. Daily Maverick In February 2013, she announced the formation of a new political party, named Agang (Sotho for "Build"), intended to challenge the African National Congress."Anti-Apartheid Leader Forms New Party in South Africa." New York Times. 18 February 2013.

Education

Ramphele’s political awakening came at a very young age. Her sister Mashadi was expelled from high school after she demonstrated against the celebrations of South Africa’s becoming a Republic in 1961. Ramphele also remembers her parents discussing the detention of her uncle under the 90-day detention clause.

She attended the G. H. Frantz Secondary School but in January 1962 she left for Bethesda Normal School, a boarding school which was part of the Bethesda teachers training college. In 1964, she moved to Setotolwane High School for her matriculation where she was one of only two girls in her class. On completion of her schooling in 1966, in 1967, Mamphela enrolled for pre-medical courses at the University of the North. In 1968, she was accepted into the University of Natal Medical School, then the only institution that allowed Black students to enrol without prior permission from the government. Her meagre financial resources meant that she was forced to borrow money to travel to the Natal Medical School (now the Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela Medical School). Ramphele won the 1968 South African Jewish Women’s Association Scholarship and the Sir Ernest Oppenheimer Bursary worth about R150 annually for the rest of her years at Medical School.

Activism

While at university she had become increasingly involved in student politics and anti-apartheid activism and was one of the founders of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), along with Steve Biko. As a member of the BCM, she was especially involved in organizing and working with community development programmes. She and Biko had a long, passionate relationship. Though Biko was married at the time, he and Ramphele had two children. The first, a girl, Lerato Biko (1974), died of pneumonia at two months.Mothibeli, Tefo. , Financial Mail, Johannesburg, July 7, 2006. Their son, Hlumelo Biko, was born in 1978, after Biko’s death.Daley, Suzanne. , NY Times, New York, April 13, 1997.

Due to her political activities, she was internally banished by the apartheid government to the town of Tzaneen from 1977 to 1984. She worked with the South African Students Association (SASO), a breakaway from the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) that operated on English speaking white campuses. NUSAS had Black and White students as members. SASO was formed in 1969, under the leadership of Steve Biko, with whom she later had a child.

From 1970 onwards, Ramphele became increasingly drawn into political activism with Biko, Barney Pityana and other student activists at the Medical School. She was elected the Chairperson of the local SASO branch. Between managing a hectic schedule of political activism and her studies, Ramphele qualified as a doctor in 1972. She began her medical internship at Durban’s King Edward VIII Hospital and later transferred to Livingstone Hospital in Port Elizabeth.

In 1974, Ramphele was charged under the Suppression of Communism Act for being in possession of banned literature. In 1975, she founded the Zanempilo Community Health Centre in Zinyoka, a village outside King William’s Town. It was one of the first primary health care initiatives outside the public sector in South Africa. During this time, she was also the manager of the Eastern Cape branch of the Black Community Health Programme. She travelled extensively in the Eastern Cape organising people to be drawn into community projects. In addition to her medical duties, Ramphele also became the Director of the Black Community Programmes (BCP) in the Eastern Cape when Biko was banned. In August 1976, Ramphele was detained under section 10 of the Terrorism Act, one of the first persons to be detained under this newly promulgated law.