Summary:Tladinyane Kgodumo has supported the rights of his community since apartheid. He is the Director of Metsimaholo Community Advice Office, a community support centre addressing resolutions of labour disputes, free legal referrals, mediation of community conflicts, and education concerning social justice and individual rights. His work has not been without challenges; for example, he lost his job for organising a protest against unfair labor practices. With no funding, Kgodumo uses his own resources to persevere in his activism.

Profile: Tladinyane Kgodumo had first-hand experience of the brutality of the apartheid regime in 1967 when colonial agents dispossessed Black people of their land and livestock.

He recalls: “What inspired me to become an activist was a racist incident in 1967 that made me to first experience racism and see an action of dispossession of Black people by racist settler regime . . . they literally forcefully took away herds of hundreds of cattle from devastated and helpless subsistence farmers using lies that there is no grazing land and that people are only allowed to keep no more than six cattle per household, knowing very well that because most families kept cattle, there would be nobody to buy those that were surplus, opening a door for White farmers to swoop in and buy them bulk for close to nothing. That turned out to be the start of a downward spiral to poverty of many Black families right in front of my eyes.” And “The second incident was the forced removals and relocation of Black people to mountainous enclaves of poverty called Homelands/Bantustans, which took place from the early to mid-70s.”

As a result, Kgodumo was inspired to support the cause of the liberation of his people: “These specific incidents opened my eyes to politics and helped me understand what apartheid and racism meant, brought the fire inside me to want to fight for the right of Black people to belong and their right to access to land and resources.”

Given this background, Kgodumo became a member of several campaigns and initiatives that were meant to liberate Black people from the yoke of colonialism.

“I first became politically active and conscious,” he says, “during my secondary school years in the late 1970s. In the early 80s I joined Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO) and its underground structures in the late 80s to pursue an agenda for the total liberation of Black people, the land, and its resources. As part of the course, I was part of the group that established Zamdela Civic Association in 1988. We further established SANCO Zamdela in 1990, Zamdela Parents Teacher Association in 1989, the branch of trade union South African Chemical Workers Union (SACWU) in Sasol, which I was one of the founding shop stewards, in 1985.”

In 1987, Kgodumo and his colleagues organised workers' protests across the country to challenge unfair labor practices and discrimination by employers. Years later, he and his colleagues formed Metsimaholo Community Association, a civic association for the people of Metsimaholo Local Municipality, to “give them a voice in the running and promote their participation in local governance.” He also led a peaceful protest against Metsimaholo Municipality for poor service delivery and bad governance. More organizations: In 2018 he and his colleagues formed the Metsimaholo Community Advice Office; Kgodumo assumed the position of Managing Director. And in 2022, he was elected the National Commissar of Black Consciousness United (BCMU), “a movement that is historically known for fighting for the rights of Black people.”

His work has not been easy. When Kgodumo was offered a bribe to stop him from campaigning for workers’ rights in the 1980s, he refused, ultimately losing his job. “I turned down the offer to return to work after the 1987 workers strike in which 3800 workers participated,” he says. “I saw that as a strategy to break down the morale of the workers. I wanted all workers who had participated in the protest to be allowed to return to work.”

Another challenge: Kgodumo is not paid for his work: “Metsimaholo Community Advice Office is a registered nonprofit organisation in which everything is done on a voluntary basis, and nobody gets paid for the sacrifices we do for the good of the poor and vulnerable people within our community.”

Nonetheless, Kgodumo is determined to continue in the path of justice: “Activism is in my genes. I feel satisfied by impacting people’s lives.”