A Tribute to a Revolutionary: Exhibition of the Life and Times of Mr Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe
By CityLife Arts Writer
There is every reason to visit Umhlabatii Gallery in Newtown this December, and this is because there is a powerful exhibition currently on there.
“The City of Joburg-Arts, Culture and Heritage is proud to announce the opening of a seminal exhibition to reflect on the life and legacy of one of the giants of South Africa’s liberation struggle, the late Mr. Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe. This inspiring tribute will outline the moving journey of a courageous with a razor-sharp mind whose life served as a perfect case of courage, conviction, and unrelenting commitment to justice, equity, and freedom<’ a statement from the city accompanying the exhibition says.
This eulogia exhibition of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe (Born 5 December-27 February 1978) opened at Umhlabathi Gallery in Newtown on December 5 December 2024. It allows visitors to delve deeply into the life and times of Sobukwe through photos, writings and publications. Sobukwe’s fight against apartheid was a publicised affair with snaps of his every move recorded. The collections of those culminated in some of these exhibition items.
One of the least known facts about Sobukwe is that he was once a junior language assistant lecturer at the University of Witwatersrand and resigned on 21 March, 1960 to start serving fully in his organisation, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) which he had established and was the president of. The resignation letter is in the collection.
In Another, his wife, a nurse by profession, writes to the authorities to express her fear for her husband’s ailing health and writes that she knows his health better than anyone. This letter is written in 1966 around which time Sobukwe had earned a degree in Economics from the University of London. Shortly after, Sobukwe was offered a job by the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People in the US, a few days later the same offer was made to him by the University of Wisconsin but was denied both opportunities by the then the minister of justice and later prime minister of South Africa, John Vorster. He had added a law degree to his stripes by the time he died.
A Tribute to a Revolutionary: Exhibition of the Life and Times of Mr Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe is at Umhlabathi Gallery, 3 Helen Joseph Street, Newtown.