Kgalema Motlanthe - Early Life

Early Life

Kgalema Petrus Motlanthe was born on 19 July 1949 at the Boksburg-Benoni Hospital. He grew up in Alexandra, Johannesburg, Transvaal (now Gauteng). His parents, Louis Mathakoe Motlanthe, a cleaner and Masefako Sophia Madingoane, a domestic worker married in 1946.

Motlanthe (also known as Mkhuluwa, the elder one) has two younger brothers, Tlatlane Ernest and Lekota Sydney.

Motlanthe’s maternal grandfather, Kgalema Marcus Madingoane and his grandmother, Louisa Mmope Sehole lived in Apex, a squatter camp on Benoni Old Location where they moved to in search of work. Here, Madingoane became involved in community affairs and eventually became a Councillor in Apex. He was instrumental in founding the township of Daveyton in 1955 where he ran a funeral parlour and a general dealership.

When he was 11, his parents were forced to move from Alexander to Meadowlands . He first attended school in Ga-Mothiba, Northern Transvaal .

Motlanthe returned to Alexandra and enrolled in Grade 1 at an Anglican Missionary School. The school was eventually closed when the administration refused to implement Bantu Education. After this, he attended the Totomeng Lower primary School in Meadowlands and then went to Meadowlands Secondary School, walking several kilometres to and from school. He then enrolled at Orlando High School (also in Johannesburg). He completed his matriculation on Robben Island years later.

Motlanthe’s parents were practising Christians, which influenced his outlook on life. He served as an altar boy and at one point intended to enter the Anglican priesthood. Family and friends described him as a gentle and kind person.

In 1964, the Anglican Church awarded him a bursary to attend St Christopher’s in Swaziland to complete his secondary schooling and then enter the priesthood. His application for travel documents to the Bantu Affairs Department was turned down and they informed him that he had to study in South Africa.

His political interest was aroused after reading The Anglican priest, Father Trevor Huddleston’s, Naught for Your Comfort. The American Black Panther Movement and the rising Black Consciousness Movement in South African also played a role in shaping his political awareness.

Whilst at high school he worked part time at a bottle store in Hyde Park, Johannesburg. In 1969, he began work in the Johannesburg City Council, supervising liquor outlets in Soweto. Stan Nkosi, his closest friend and comrade, Siphiwe Nyanda, former minister of communications and George Nene, deputy director general in the foreign affairs department also worked in this unit at various times. Together they later joined the ANC’s military wing uMkhonto weSizwe (MK). During the seven years that he worked there, Motlanthe was able to engage in underground work such asgoing almost weekly to Manzini, Swaziland couriering ANC recruits for military training.

In 1975, he married Mapula Mokate, from Sophiatown. Mokate was a radiographer at Baragwanath Hospital, Soweto. The couple have two children, Kagiso and Kgomotso.

He attended the Anglican Missionary school now known as Pholoso Primary and matriculated from Orlando High School in Meadowlands, Soweto after his family was forcibly removed there in 1959. The formative influence in his early years was the Anglican Church. He served as an altar boy for many years and at one point thought of becoming a priest.

In the 1970s, while working for the Johannesburg City Council, he was recruited into Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the ANC. He formed part of a unit tasked with recruiting comrades for military training. On 14 April 1976, he was arrested for furthering the aims of the ANC and was kept in detention for 11 months at John Vorster Square in central Johannesburg. In 1977 he was found guilty of three charges under the Terrorism Act and sentenced to an effective 10 years imprisonment on Robben Island, from 1977 to 1987. According to the 1977 Survey of Race Relations: "they were alleged to have undergone training for sabotage, promoted ANC activities, and received explosives for sabotage. All pleaded not guilty. Mr Justice Human found Nkosi and Mothlanthe guilty and sentenced them to effective jail sentences of 10 years each. Mosoeu was acquitted."

On his years in prison:

"We were a community of people who ranged from the totally illiterate to people who could very easily have been professors at universities. We shared basically everything. The years out there were the most productive years in one's life, we were able to read, we read all the material that came our way, took an interest in the lives of people even in the remotest corners of this world. To me those years gave meaning to life."

— Kgalema Motlanthe

Shortly after his release he was elected Secretary-General of the National Union of Mineworkers. In January 1992 the Central Executive Committee elected him acting General Secretary in January over Marcel Golding, and in 1997 he was elected Secretary-General of the ANC, replacing Cyril Ramaphosa.