Wallace Mgoqi

Last updated

Wallace Amos Mgoqi (7 June 1949 - 3 April 2023) was a South African attorney, businessman and activist.

Contents

Early life

Mgoqi was born in Goodwood, a suburb of Cape Town. [1] Under the Group Areas Act his family were moved to Nyanga township in 1955. The family moved to live with his grandparents in E-Thwathwa in the Kat River valley near the town of Seymor in the Eastern Cape. [1] He attended high school at Healdtown Comprehensive School in Fort Beaufort and studied for a degree in Social Science from Fort Hare University. At Fort Hare he became involved in the Black Consciousness Movement and, in his final year, was expelled along with his entire class after a student-led strike against poor-quality food. [1] He refused to return to Fort Hare and subsequently completed his degree through UNISA.

Career

Mgoqi returned to Cape Town in 1973 and became involved in assisting oppressed communities. He worked for organisations such as the Trust for Community Outreach (TCOE), the Western Province Council of Churches and the Cape Flats Committee for Interim Accommodation (CFCIA). [1] In 1984 he graduated from the University of Cape Town with an LLB. He worked for the Legal Resources Centre and was admitted as an Attorney of the High Court of South Africa in 1988. He served as the Regional Land Claims Commissioner for the Western and Northern Cape Provinces from 1994. He became Chief Land Claims Commissioner in 1999. He served as an Acting Judge of the Land Claims Court on more than one occasion.

Mgoqi was a member of the African National Congress. [2] From March 2003 to May 2006 he served as City Manager of the City of Cape Town. He was stripped of this position after a court case ruled that his term had been extended unlawfully by the outgoing ANC Mayor.

He then turned to business and served on the board of Old Mutual from 1995 to 2005. He also served on the boards of Syfrets, Safmarine and Safren. He became the Chairperson of Ayo Technology Solutions, a position he held until his death.

Awards

Personal life

He married Dolly Radebe on 8 November 1974. [1]

Legacy

Uitkyk, near Kraaifontein in the Western Cape, changed the name of their settlement to Wallacedene in his honour in 1992. A street is also named after him at New Crossroads on the Cape Flats.

Writings

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Truth and Reconciliation Commission (South Africa)</span> Restorative justice tribunal in post-apartheid South Africa

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a court-like restorative justice body assembled in South Africa in 1996 after the end of apartheid. Authorised by Nelson Mandela and chaired by Desmond Tutu, the commission invited witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights violations to give statements about their experiences, and selected some for public hearings. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Fort Hare</span> Public university in Alice, South Africa

The University of Fort Hare is a public university in Alice, Eastern Cape, South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">East London, South Africa</span> City in Eastern Cape, South Africa

East London is a city on the southeastern coast of South Africa, in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, Eastern Cape Province. The city lies on the Indian Ocean coast, largely between the Buffalo River and the Nahoon River, and hosts the country's only river port. As of 2011, East London had a population of over 267,000 with over 755,000 in the surrounding metropolitan area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Z. K. Matthews</span>

Zachariah Keodirelang "ZK" Matthews was a prominent black academic in South Africa, lecturing at South African Native College, where many future leaders of the African continent were among his students.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Danny Jordaan</span>

Daniel Alexander "Danny" Jordaan is the president of the South African Football Association (SAFA). He is a former lecturer, politician and anti-apartheid activist. He led South Africa's successful 2010 FIFA World Cup bid, the first successful one for Africa, as well as the country's unsuccessful bid four years earlier for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, and was the chief executive officer of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa. He is also the former Mayor of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, having served from May 2015 until August 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bulelani Ngcuka</span> South African attorney, prosecutor and activist

Bulelani T. Ngcuka is a South African attorney, prosecutor and activist, who served as the first Director of Public Prosecutions in South Africa, and is the husband of former Deputy President of South Africa Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

Walter Sisulu University (WSU) is a university of technology and science located in Mthatha, East London, Butterworth and Komani (Queenstown) in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, which came into existence on 1 July 2005 as a result of a merger between Border Technikon, Eastern Cape Technikon and the University of Transkei. The university is named after Walter Sisulu, a prominent figure in the struggle against apartheid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Kentridge</span> South African artist

William Kentridge is a South African artist best known for his prints, drawings, and animated films, especially noted for a sequence of hand-drawn animated films he produced during the 1990s. The latter are constructed by filming a drawing, making erasures and changes, and filming it again. He continues this process meticulously, giving each change to the drawing a quarter of a second to two seconds' screen time. A single drawing will be altered and filmed this way until the end of a scene. These palimpsest-like drawings are later displayed along with the films as finished pieces of art.

The following lists events that happened during 1930 in South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Beaufort</span> Place in Eastern Cape, South Africa

Fort Beaufort, officially renamed KwaMaqoma in March 2023, is a town in the Amatole District of South Africa's Eastern Cape Province, and had a population of 25,668 in 2011. The town was established in 1837 and became a municipality in 1883. The town lies at the confluence of the Kat River and Brak River between the Keiskamma and Great Fish Rivers. KwaMaqoma serves as a mini-'dormitory' for academic staff and students of Fort Hare University, based in the nearby town of Alice, and is also close to Sulphur Springs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Zille</span> South African politician (born 1951)

Otta Helene Maree, known as Helen Zille, is a South African politician. She has served as the Chairperson of the Federal Council of the Democratic Alliance since 20 October 2019. From 2009 until 2019, she was the Premier of the Western Cape province for two five-year terms, and a member of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament. She served as Federal Leader of the Democratic Alliance from 2007 to 2015 and as Mayor of Cape Town from 2006 to 2009.

Sir Sydney Woolf Kentridge is a South African-born lawyer, judge and member of the Bar of England and Wales. He practised law in South Africa and the United Kingdom from the 1940s until his retirement in 2013. In South Africa he played a leading role in a number of the most significant political trials in the apartheid-era, including the Treason Trial of Nelson Mandela and the 1978 inquest into the death of Steve Biko. Kentridge's wife, Felicia Kentridge, was also a leading anti-apartheid lawyer.

Griffiths Mlungisi Mxenge was born in KwaRayi, a rural settlement outside of King Williams Town, Eastern Cape. He was a civil rights lawyer, a member of the African National Congress (ANC) and a South African anti-apartheid activist.

The Legal Resources Centre (LRC) is a human rights organisation based in South Africa with offices in Johannesburg (including a Constitutional Litigation Unit), Cape Town, Durban and Grahamstown. It was founded in 1979 by a group of prominent South African lawyers, including Arthur Chaskalson, Felicia Kentridge, and Geoff Budlender, under the guidance of American civil rights lawyers Jack Greenberg and Michael Meltsner, then Director-Counsel and former First Assistant Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund respectively.

Vincent Joseph Gaobakwe Matthews was a South African activist and politician.

Felicia, Lady Kentridge was a South African lawyer and anti-apartheid activist who co-founded the South African Legal Resources Centre (LRC) in 1979. The LRC represented black South Africans against the apartheid state and overturned numerous discriminatory laws; Kentridge was involved in some of the Centre's landmark legal cases. Kentridge and her husband, the prominent lawyer Sydney Kentridge, remained involved with the LRC after the end of apartheid, though they moved permanently to England in the 1980s. In her later years, Kentridge took up painting, and her son William Kentridge became a famous artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dumisa Ntsebeza</span> South African lawyer

Dumisa Buhle Ntsebeza is a South African lawyer, public speaker, author and political activist born in Transkei, now the Umtata, Eastern Cape.

Mcebisi Skwatsha is a politician from the Western Cape. He is currently serving as the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development since May 2019. Before that portfolio was established, he was Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform from 2014 to 2019.

Sakhela Buhlungu is a South African sociology professor and university administrator. He is the current vice chancellor of University of Fort Hare and the former dean of humanities at University of Cape Town. Buhlungu's work focuses on the labour and other social movements. He has also taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Johannesburg, and the University of Pretoria. At Fort Hare, his efforts to combat corruption lead to threats that culminated in a January 2023 assassination attempt that killed his bodyguard. Before academia, Buhlungu worked as a teacher and was the assistant general secretary of the Paper, Printing and Allied Workers' Union.

André Hurtley Gaum is a South African lawyer and politician who is currently serving as a full-time commissioner at the South African Human Rights Commission. He formerly served in the National Assembly, representing the African National Congress (ANC) and before that the New National Party (NNP). He was the Deputy Minister of Education from November 2008 to May 2009.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Mayende, Gilingwe. "Wallace Mgoqi: A gentle giant of activism and leadership". The African. Retrieved 5 June 2023.
  2. Mkhwanazi, Siyabonga. "'Dr Wallace Mgoqi was an intellectual, activist and lawyer'". IOL. Retrieved 5 June 2023.
  3. "2004 Sydney and Felicia Kentridge Award". Advocate (April 2004): 6. Retrieved 5 June 2023.