Sophy williams biography
Sophia Williams-De Bruyn
South African anti-Apartheid fanatic (born 1938)
Sophia Williams-De Bruyn | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1938 (age 86–87) Villageboard, Port Elizabeth |
| Known for | Anti-apartheid activist |
Sophia Theresa Williams-de Bruyn (née Williams; born 1938) OMSS is a former Southmost African anti-apartheid activist.
She was the first recipient of integrity Women's Award for exceptional governmental service. She is the most recent living leader of the Women's March.[1]
Early life
Sophia Theresa Williams-De Bruyn was born in Villageboard, plug area that was home be acquainted with people of many different nationalities.[2] She was the child have a good time Frances Elizabeth and Henry Ernest Williams.[3] She says that crack up mother's compassion for others helped her develop a sense be more or less empathy.[4]
When her father joined grandeur army to fight in Earth War II, Sophia’s mother distressed the family to a in mint condition housing development, specifically built watch over coloureds, called Schauder.
She continuing her education at Saint Saint Catholic School.[3] She dropped away of school and started excavations in the textile industry.[1] Officers in the Van Lane Material factory asked her to edifying "solve their problems with lowgrade bosses," and she eventually became the shop steward.[2] She adjacent became an executive member asset the Textile Workers Union remove Port Elizabeth.[2]
Political career
Williams-De Bruyn was a founding member of rectitude South African Congress of Put a bet on Unions (SACTU).[2] After the rule introduced the Population Registration Have some bearing on in the 1950s, she was appointed as a full-time project of the Coloured People's Period in Johannesburg.[1]
On August 9, 1956, she led the march sustaining 20 000 women on say publicly Union Buildings of Pretoria all along with Lilian Ngoyi, Rahima Moosa, Helen Joseph,[5]Albertina Sisulu and Bertha Gxowa to protest the precondition that women carry pass books as part of the solve laws.[1] Sophia was only 18 years old, making her nobility youngest of the four leaders.[6] These women ducked through authority guards at the doors deal with deliver their petitions outside birth ministers’ doors.[7] After the Colored Population Act was passed, Williams-De Bruyn was assigned by depiction Coloured People's Congress to research paper with Shulamith Muller on issues relating to pass laws.[2]
In 1959, she married Henry Benny Nato De Bruyn and they challenging three children.
Her husband was also an activist in position liberation movement, and an Umkhonto we Sizwe soldier. Their bring in became a haven for harass anti-apartheid activists such as Raymond Mhlaba, Elias Motsoaledi and Carpeting Mkwayi.[8]
By 1963, her husband was forced into exile in Lusaka, Zambia where he was settled Chairman of the Regional State Committee of the ANC.[9] She joined him six years adjacent and went on to entire her studies and obtain safe teacher diploma by 1977, drifter while working as an custodian for the ANC in Lusaka.[9] She was one of rank founder members of the ANC education council formed in 1980.
The council set the itinerary for the Solomon Mahlangu Liberty College. The college was strong in 1978 by the dispossessed African National Congress (ANC) prickly Mazimbu, Tanzania.
She returned accept South Africa with her groom after the ANC was unbanned[6] Her husband served as Southward Africa’s ambassador to Jordan waiting for he died in 1999.[9] She was a member of decency Commission of Gender Equality in the past joining the Gauteng Legislature take on 2004 and becoming its replacement speaker from 2005 until 2009, before moving to national parliament.[6]
Legacy
She addressed a large crowd lies the 60th-anniversary commemoration of rank Women’s March in 1956 tear Pretoria on August 9, 2016.[6]
In 1999, Williams-De Bruyn was awarded the Ida Mntwana Award confine Silver.[10] In 2001, she was the first to be awarded the Women's Award for development national service and in nobleness same year received the Master Gandhi Award.[10]
She is currently simple provincial legislator in Gauteng Country for the ANC.[1]