Charlotte Maxeke: mother of black freedom in South Africa

Abstract

Until the 2016 publication of Zubeida Jaffers biography, Beauty of the Heart, most people associated the name Charlotte Maxeke with a hospital, a submarine, or streets in towns and cities across the country. But few people knew who she was, and what she had achieved. Dubbed the "Mother of Black Freedom in South Africa", this formidable woman was an academic, an outspoken activist against social injustice and women's inequality, and one of the first female members of the ANC.