#44-20 Sizani Ngubane, R.I.P. … Great South African organizer claimed by COVID

One of the great organizers of our times, Sizani Ngubane of South Africa, has died of COVID-19. From 1997, here is the first interview she gave to WINGS. She tells of organizing for the ANC as a teenager and young mother, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Process, the stolen rule by the Inkatha Party in Natal Province, and educating and organizing women to claim their rights.

Host(s): Frieda Werden
Featured Speakers/Guests: Sizani Ngubane, organizer for racial justice, land rights and women’s rights in South Africa. She founded the Rural Women’s Movement.

Credits: Selections from a 1-hour 1997 interview on the program Women’s News Hour, broadcast on Austin Community Television. Recorded and edited by Lisa Hayes. Interview and update to 2021 by Frieda Werden. Special thanks to Richard Raber, Suzette Cullen, Genevieve Vaughan, and your local community radio station.

Comments: To the great sorrow of all but those who often tried to kill her, Sizani died of covid-19 in January 2021. After this 1997 interview, she founded the Rural Women’s Movement, which works on issues like women’s land rights, agricultural training, stopping violence against women and girls, and enforcing the gender equality aspects of South Africa’s Constitution. The movement is still struggling against confiscatory land policies in Kwazulu Natal province, and against yet a third attempt by the African National Congress to give total personal control over local courts and land allocations to so-called traditional chiefs.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O5Dcp06ElxaMhVThuV8Vevw7xO1PoueD/view