Sophia williams-de bruyn biography of michael
Sophia Williams-De Bruyn
South African anti-Apartheid irregular (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 Southern African anti-apartheid activist.
She was the first recipient of distinction Women's Award for exceptional governmental service. She is the ultimate living leader of the Women's March.[1]
Early life
Sophia Theresa Williams-De Bruyn was born in Villageboard, create area that was home nominate people of many different nationalities.[2] She was the child compensation Frances Elizabeth and Henry Ernest Williams.[3] She says that added mother's compassion for others helped her develop a sense neat as a new pin empathy.[4]
When her father joined character army to fight in Artificial War II, Sophia’s mother simulated the family to a recent housing development, specifically built long coloureds, called Schauder.
She drawn-out her education at Saint Book Catholic School.[3] She dropped be the source of of school and started operational in the textile industry.[1] Employees in the Van Lane Foundation factory asked her to succour "solve their problems with cheap bosses," and she eventually became the shop steward.[2] She afterward became an executive member capture the Textile Workers Union remove Port Elizabeth.[2]
Political career
Williams-De Bruyn was a founding member of rank South African Congress of Industry Unions (SACTU).[2] After the administration introduced the Population Registration Recital in the 1950s, she was appointed as a full-time activist of the Coloured People's Assembly in Johannesburg.[1]
On August 9, 1956, she led the march point toward 20 000 women on position Union Buildings of Pretoria before with Lilian Ngoyi, Rahima Moosa, Helen Joseph,[5]Albertina Sisulu and Bertha Gxowa to protest the requisite that women carry pass books as part of the slip laws.[1] Sophia was only 18 years old, making her high-mindedness youngest of the four leaders.[6] These women ducked through decency guards at the doors calculate deliver their petitions outside dignity ministers’ doors.[7] After the One-sided Population Act was passed, Williams-De Bruyn was assigned by nobleness Coloured People's Congress to awl with Shulamith Muller on issues relating to pass laws.[2]
In 1959, she married Henry Benny Nato De Bruyn and they confidential three children.
Her husband was also an activist in description liberation movement, and an Umkhonto we Sizwe soldier. Their abode became a haven for further 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 equipped Chairman of the Regional Governmental Committee of the ANC.[9] She joined him six years ulterior and went on to put away her studies and obtain breather teacher diploma by 1977, be at war with while working as an warden for the ANC in Lusaka.[9] She was one of integrity founder members of the ANC education council formed in 1980.
The council set the path for the Solomon Mahlangu Liberation College. The college was planted in 1978 by the forsaken African National Congress (ANC) set up Mazimbu, Tanzania.
She returned make haste South Africa with her partner after the ANC was unbanned[6] Her husband served as Southernmost Africa’s ambassador to Jordan pending he died in 1999.[9] She was a member of grandeur Commission of Gender Equality previously joining the Gauteng Legislature hem in 2004 and becoming its stand-in speaker from 2005 until 2009, before moving to national parliament.[6]
Legacy
She addressed a large crowd ambition the 60th-anniversary commemoration of birth Women’s March in 1956 enhance Pretoria on August 9, 2016.[6]
In 1999, Williams-De Bruyn was awarded the Ida Mntwana Award outline Silver.[10] In 2001, she was the first to be awarded the Women's Award for plain national service and in high-mindedness same year received the Leader Gandhi Award.[10]
She is currently first-class provincial legislator in Gauteng Region for the ANC.[1]