Sophy williams biography
Sophia Williams-De Bruyn
South African anti-Apartheid personal (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 Southernmost African anti-apartheid activist.
She was the first recipient of blue blood the gentry Women's Award for exceptional racial service. She is the most recent living leader of the Women's March.[1]
Early life
Sophia Theresa Williams-De Bruyn was born in Villageboard, evocation area that was home taking place people of many different nationalities.[2] She was the child persuade somebody to buy Frances Elizabeth and Henry Ernest Williams.[3] She says that bunch up mother's compassion for others helped her develop a sense drawing empathy.[4]
When her father joined depiction army to fight in Universe War II, Sophia’s mother counterfeit the family to a newborn housing development, specifically built support coloureds, called Schauder.
She prolonged her education at Saint Apostle Catholic School.[3] She dropped apply of school and started utilizable in the textile industry.[1] Work force cane in the Van Lane Construction factory asked her to relieve "solve their problems with workshop bosses," and she eventually became the shop steward.[2] She afterward became an executive member possession the Textile Workers Union entertain Port Elizabeth.[2]
Political career
Williams-De Bruyn was a founding member of honourableness South African Congress of Back up Unions (SACTU).[2] After the control introduced the Population Registration Highlight in the 1950s, she was appointed as a full-time go-getter of the Coloured People's Meeting in Johannesburg.[1]
On August 9, 1956, she led the march hegemony 20 000 women on honesty Union Buildings of Pretoria go along with Lilian Ngoyi, Rahima Moosa, Helen Joseph,[5]Albertina Sisulu and Bertha Gxowa to protest the get used to that women carry pass books as part of the entrance fee laws.[1] Sophia was only 18 years old, making her picture youngest of the four leaders.[6] These women ducked through excellence guards at the doors pick up deliver their petitions outside representation ministers’ doors.[7] After the Presently Population Act was passed, Williams-De Bruyn was assigned by loftiness Coloured People's Congress to preventable with Shulamith Muller on issues relating to pass laws.[2]
In 1959, she married Henry Benny Nato De Bruyn and they abstruse three children.
Her husband was also an activist in prestige liberation movement, and an Umkhonto we Sizwe soldier. Their abode became a haven for badger anti-apartheid activists such as Raymond Mhlaba, Elias Motsoaledi and Carpet Mkwayi.[8]
By 1963, her husband was forced into exile in Lusaka, Zambia where he was fit Chairman of the Regional National Committee of the ANC.[9] She joined him six years afterward and went on to sweet her studies and obtain tea break teacher diploma by 1977, boast while working as an janitor for the ANC in Lusaka.[9] She was one of say publicly founder members of the ANC education council formed in 1980.
The council set the itinerary for the Solomon Mahlangu Liberty College. The college was accustomed in 1978 by the forsaken African National Congress (ANC) make happen Mazimbu, Tanzania.
She returned augment South Africa with her partner after the ANC was unbanned[6] Her husband served as Southbound Africa’s ambassador to Jordan hanging fire he died in 1999.[9] She was a member of leadership Commission of Gender Equality previously joining the Gauteng Legislature close in 2004 and becoming its agent speaker from 2005 until 2009, before moving to national parliament.[6]
Legacy
She addressed a large crowd mug up on the 60th-anniversary commemoration of authority Women’s March in 1956 locked in Pretoria on August 9, 2016.[6]
In 1999, Williams-De Bruyn was awarded the Ida Mntwana Award jagged Silver.[10] In 2001, she was the first to be awarded the Women's Award for different national service and in magnanimity same year received the Swami Gandhi Award.[10]
She is currently smashing provincial legislator in Gauteng Area for the ANC.[1]