By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has paid tribute to Dumasile “Duma” Nokwe at a special provincial official funeral held at the Walter Sisulu Hall in Randburg on Saturday.
The struggle icon was finally laid to rest at West Park Cemetery, decades after dying in exile.
Nokwe, the first black advocate admitted to the Johannesburg Society of Advocates, died in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1978.
His remains were repatriated in 2024.
A special provincial funeral was held on Saturday, where Nokwe was reburied alongside his wife, Vuyiswa Nokwe.
Ramaphosa posthumously conferred upon him the honorary title of senior counsel, saying the activist had finally come home to the free South Africa he fought for.
“He never got to set foot on the soil of a liberated, democratic South Africa. Many more of our brave men and women were pursued, persecuted, and hunted down in exile. Some were tortured, killed, and buried in unmarked graves in foreign lands. The ANC, together with our government, is working to bring them back home.”
Nokwe dedicated his life to the liberation of South Africa from the tyranny of apartheid. He was a youth activist who rose to become the Secretary General of the African National Congress.
Ramaphosa also paid tribute to Nokwe’s legacy, describing him as a symbol of sacrifice and resilience in the struggle for democracy.
The President called on South Africa to embrace all that Nokwe represented and embodied.
“At this time, when we strive to make a fundamental break with the many ghosts of our past, let us hold to the values that defined him and that make us so unique as a people: courage, empathy, understanding, tolerance.
“We still have many more journeys to undertake. Our freedom is not yet fully formed. Let us affirm that as South Africans we are all of the same soil.
“We will never renege on the promise of equality, justice and freedom for all, as promised by our Constitution,” the President said.
He said government will continue to build a South Africa in which no-one – neither black nor white, neither woman nor man – feels themselves a pariah in the land of their birth.
“We owe this to the spirit and legacy of the great Duma Nokwe, who stood for non-racialism throughout his life.May his spirit rise. May it guide us in the hard work that lies ahead and may it inspire us.”
“Nokwe was a revolutionary. He was a servant of the people. He was a man of unwavering principle, of great courage and of unmatched selflessness.”