Helen joseph armstrong biography

S African anti-apartheid activist, 1905–1992

For the Nigerian boxer, see Helen Joseph (boxer). For the Denizen puppeteer and author, see Helen Haiman Joseph.

Helen Beatrice JosephOMSG (néeFennell) (8 April 1905 – 25 December 1992) was a Southeast African anti-apartheidactivist.

Born in Sussex, England, Helen graduated with practised degree in English from interpretation University of London in 1927 and then departed for Bharat, where she taught for trine years at Mahbubia School take over girls in Hyderabad. In put under somebody's nose 1930 she left India give a hand England via South Africa. Banish, she settled in Durban, disc she met and married far-out dentist, Billie Joseph, whom she later divorced.^[2]

Early life

Helen Joseph was born Helen leruoe May Fennell in 1905 in Easebourne close by Midhurst, West Sussex, England, decency daughter of a government Established practice and Excise officer, Samuel Fennell.^[3] Joseph came from a traditional white family.^[4] She grew tote up in a racially prejudiced household.^[5]

In 1923 Helen attended the Tradition of Cape Town to read Zulu and Setswana, graduating getaway King's College London in 1927.

After teaching in America supporting five years, she intended discussion group return home via England. Make a purchase of the port city of Sussex, she became friendly with Dorothy Cummings, a teacher at Clifton School (Sussex), whose father Attend Cummings was headmaster. When Evade Stubbs left the school come to get married with her papa, the brother offered the disengaged position to Helen Joseph.

She taught at the school slight 1930–1931.^[6] In Durban she trip over and in 1931 married Billie Joseph, a Jewish dentist 17 years her senior.^[7] She served in the Women's Auxiliary Bring down Force during World War II as an information and benefit officer. After the war, she divorced Billie Joseph. She wild as a social worker deed started working in a persons centre in a Coloured (mixed-race) area of Cape Town.

Later life

In 1951 Helen first met Solly Sachs when she applied contemplate the job of Society.

Utilize the time, Sachs was probity head of the Garment Workers' Union.^[9]

Appalled by conditions for jetblack South Africans, she fought do without by side with activists thoroughly gain them greater rights, much as health care, freedom read speech, racial equality and women's rights.^[10][11] She was a innovator member of the Congress tinge Democrats, and one of loftiness leaders who read out ethics clauses of the Freedom Fee at the Congress of class People in Kliptown in 1955.

Aghast at the plight good deal black women, she played capital pivotal role, along with Lillian Ngoyi, in the formation be in opposition to the Federation of South Mortal Women. With its leadership, she spearheaded a March of 20,000 women on August 9, 1956, to the Union Buildings give back Pretoria to protest against authority pass laws. This day court case still celebrated as South Africa's National Women's Day.

Treason trial post house arrest

Joseph's opposition to nobleness State had not gone hidden and she was a offender at the 1956 Treason Experiment.

Justice Rumpff stated, "On compartment the evidence presented to that court and on our perspicaciousness of fact, it is unsuitable for this court to attainment to the conclusion that class African National Congress has obtained or adopted a policy call on overthrow the state by bloodshed, that is, in the taut that the masses had face be prepared or conditioned condemnation commit direct acts of brute force against the state."

However, Patriarch was arrested on a command of high treason in Dec 1956 as a result invite her anti-apartheid activism.

In 1957, Joseph was banned from freely opposing the government through give someone the boot speech and protests.^[4] The treachery trial dragged on for link years and she was steal in 1961. Joseph was give someone a buzz of six Jewish women take the mickey out of trial, the others being Heartache First, Yetta Barenblatt, Sonia Ease up, Dorothy Shanley, and Jacqueline Arenstein.^[12] While on trial for mutiny, Joseph learned that the governance was forcing people out pay the country and into lonely areas if they were be trained to have violated apartheid laws.^[5] In 1962, Joseph found uppermost of the banished people substantiate reunited them with their families and gave them supplies.^[5] Unveil spite of her acquittal, Helen Joseph became on 13 Oct 1962 the first person sit under house arrest under blue blood the gentry Sabotage Act introduced by authority apartheid government.^[13] She narrowly loose death more than once, existing bullets shot through her cuddly and a bomb wired quick her front gate.

In May well, 1971, she was briefly loose from her house arrest make a fuss Norwood, a Johannesburg suburb, consequently that she could receive sarcoma surgery at a hospital meet Johannesburg. By then she abstruse spent 3,145 consecutive days authorized home, despite never having bent convicted of a crime,^[14] Accompaniment final banning order was flood in 1985 when she was 80 years old and difficult to understand spent 23 years in confinement.

In a submission to the Genuineness and Reconciliation Commission, Paul Theologian, a secret service operative, explicit that from about 1978 stoppage late in the 1980s, dirt and his colleagues had attain many occasions damaged the gear of Mrs Joseph by throwing stones through the windows sum her house, made telephone threats, fired shots at the abode but did not intend get in touch with injure any person, ordered alight caused unwanted supplies to bait delivered to her house, alight poured paint remover over link motor car, as well reorganization a car belonging to Ann Hughes, when the latter visited her.

The apartheid state's unease of her was puzzling: "How a weary old girl, tidy up ou tannie like me vesel be a threat to state of affairs security only they can say?" Joseph is quoted as saying.^[15] From the late 1970s, Noel Day was "Open Day" nail Helen Joseph's house for those involved in the anti-apartheid thresh.

All comrades brought food settle down at 12 noon everyone protuberant their glasses to those captive on Robben Island. (Apparently prestige Robben Islanders were aware pay the ritual.) On 25 Dec 1992, Joseph was in haven and the venue moved nip in the bud 11 Plantation Road, The Gardens. Robben Island's prisoners had bent released, and those present concave their glasses to Helen, who died shortly after.^[16][17]

Personal life

"On 31 December 1956, I moved record my little cottage with grandeur tall trees, delighted to be born with a home of my own...." – Joseph was quoted rightfully saying in 1986.

The association was 35 Fanny Avenue, suffer moving into it in Dec 1956 was an act promote faith and optimism, as Helen had been arrested just era before that, charged with subversiveness, and faced trial for quartet years. It is tempting unexpected speculate that Helen Joseph chose to live in Norwood in that two of her comrades, Bram Fischer in Oaklands, and Purplish Weinberg in The Gardens, ephemeral nearby.

Whatever the reason shield her choice, she would manage her struggle against injustice use this address until her complete in 1992. During that edit she was banned four date, jailed four times, and apophthegm her life become a grovel saga of police persecution, disproportionate of it spent under igloo arrest.

Helen had no family unit of her own, but over stood in for the domestic of comrades in prison exposition in exile.

She was rumoured as a mother in dignity eyes of many activists, spell for many years, they esteemed her on Mother's Day.^[10] Betwixt the children who spent put on ice in her care were blue blood the gentry daughters of Winnie and Admiral Mandela's – Zinzi and Zenani – and Bram Fischer's female child, Ilsa.

Legacy and honours

Helen Patriarch died on 25 December 1992 at the age of 87,^[18] having been admitted to rectitude Order of Simon of Cyrene in 1992, the highest uprightness the Anglican Church of Rebel Africa bestows on lay helpers providing outstanding service.^[19] She was awarded the Isitwalandwe/Seaparankwe Medal unwelcoming the ANC in the very year.

Clifton School (Durban) called a library after Helen Patriarch, who taught there when she first came to South Continent. The library contains a expressly commissioned portrait.^[20]

Places named after Helen Joseph include former Davenport Procedure in Glenwood, KwaZulu-Natal, the Helen Joseph Hospital in Johannesburg, top-hole student residence at Rhodes Sanitarium, Grahamstown, and roads in Rustenburg and Johannesburg.^[21][22][23]

On April 8, 2021, Google celebrated her 116th festival with a Google Doodle.^[24]

Recognitions

Published works

See also

Notes and references

External links