Just in: Struggle stalwart Tom Manthata dies after contracting COVID-19

Struggle veteran Tom Manthata passed away on Friday night, 11 July 2020, after contracting COVID-19. The news was shared by Gauteng MEC for Education Panyaza Lesufi on Saturday morning.

This is a developing story, we will provide more details as and when it becomes available

Thomas Manthata: Life and legacy

Thomas Madikwe Manthata was born on 29 November 1939 in the Northern Transvaal, where he completed his teacher training before teaching primary school for three years. However, he was expelled after “being too political inclined.”

Manthata began teaching at Sekano Ntoane High School in Soweto in 1967 where he became known as a “rigorous, critical teacher who encouraged political debates among his students”, according to SA History.

Some his students included Cyril Ramaphosa and Amos Masondo. Three years later, he facilitated contact between Soweto students and older black consciousness activists who attended the schools as tutors, teachers and speakers.

In addition, Manthata became a part-time student at the University of South Africa. He later also joined both the University Christian Movement and the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO).

Manthata was wrongly convicted and spent six years behind bars after a series of detentions and court cases. He worked for the South Africa Council Churches (SACC) in the early seventies, primarily assisting the families of detainees.

He was also a member of the Black  Peoples’ Convention (BPC) from 1972, as well as the head of the Johannesburg-Pretoria (REESO) branch of SASO in 1973.

In 1974, Manthata served as the national vice-president of SASO, and served as a member of the BPC executive from 1976 to 1977 Two years later, he spoke at the inaugural conference of the Azanian People’s Organisation (APO).

In 1980-81, Manthata was a founder member and later became its general secretary. Manthata’s personal missions to the Vaal Triangle at the behest of Bishop Desmond Tutu at the outbreak of the 1984 uprising, he became a defendant in the Delmas trial of 1985-89.

Although convicted of treason in late 1988, he and all the accused were acquitted on appeal a year later. After 1990 Manthata completed a master’s degree at Coventry University in Britain, was a commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired a ministerial committee on care for the elderly, and served on the Human Rights Commission.