Sobukwe

“We are here to protest against police killing us in the name of protecting us from corona. The police have killed us more than corona,” said another protester, Sobukwe Nonkwe, 30, a filmmaker, whose friend was shot and killed by the police.

Mkongi’s words echoed a 1959 speech by Robert Sobukwe, the leader of the A.N.C.-breakaway Pan-Africanist Congress: “We take our stand on the principle that Africa is one and desires to be one and nobody, I repeat, nobody has the right to balkanize our land.”

Who now remembers the names of Robert Sobukwe – the profound pan-Africanist whose medical treatment for fatal lung cancer was obstructed by the apartheid government, or Elias Motsoaledi, convicted at Rivonia alongside Mandela and not released from Robben Island until 26 years later.

This work hung in the front foyer of the South African Embassy for about three years, beginning in 1994, Morris said, and connected the political traditions of black South African freedom fighters Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko and Robert Sobukwe with portraits of the men, leading their people.

Sobukwe said since his experience with Occupy, he’s been active in Black Lives Matter, the $15 minimum wage movement and the Occupy the Pipeline protests.