Cissie Gool: the Joan of Arc of district six

Abstract

Civil rights leader and anti-apartheid activist Zainunnisa "Cissie" Gool grew up in District Six. She was the younger of two daughters of Dr Abdullah Abduraham, a medical doctor who led the African People's Organisation (APO), an organisation that he co-founded in 1902. Abduraham was the first Muslim to attend the South African College, and also the first black South African to be elected to the Cape Town City Council, in 1904. He completed his medical degree at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, where he met and married Gool's mother, Helen James, a Scottish Christian suffragette. Gool had quite a mixed ancestry, with an Indian grandfather, Malay grandmother, Scottish mother and coloured Muslim father. Her father's close friends included Olive Schreiner and Mohandas 'Mahatma' Gandhi, bringing her into contact with some of South Africa's most colourful characters of the time.