Bodibeng High School: Black Consciousness Philosophy and Students Demonstration, 1940s-1976

South African Historical Journal
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Bodibeng High School: Black Consciousness

Philosophy and Students Demonstration,
1940s–1976
Tshepo Moloi
To cite this article: Tshepo Moloi (2011) Bodibeng High School: Black Consciousness Philosophy
and Students Demonstration, 1940s–1976, South African Historical Journal, 63:1, 102-126, DOI:
10.1080/02582473.2011.549376
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South African Historical Journal
Vol. 63, No. 1, March 2011, 102126
Bodibeng High School: Black Consciousness Philosophy and Students

Demonstration, 1940s 1976
TSHEPO MOLOI*

University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Abstract
This paper examines the factor(s) that caused students to demonstrate in 1976
through a case study of Bodibeng High School in Maokeng, Kroonstad, in the
northern Free State. It shows the role of the teachers influenced by the Black
Consciousness philosophy. The latter caused the behavioural change of some of
the students at Bodibeng High School, from submissive to assertive, and
political. Bodibeng High School, dating back to the 1940s, was one of the
major centres of education for African students in the then Orange Free State
(now Free State Province). It was one of the two day schools to offer matric as
early as 1940, and the only one to have its matriculants writing the Joint
Matriculation Board Examination in the mid 1960s, instead of the Bantu
Education’s senior certificate examinations. The school attracted an influx of
students from all over the country, and some of the best teachers. There were
three phases in the history of the school; each phase can be characterised in
terms of the degree of its engagement in the political affairs of the day. The first,
from the 1940s to 1950s, was one where teachers engaged both education and
politics actively. The second, from the 1960s to the beginning of the 1970s was a
period of apparent quiescence. The third, from the early 1970s, was
characterised, once again, by active engagement of students and teachers with
politics. In the latter period, the Black Consciousness philosophy was the major
influence. This paper will show that the influence of the Black Consciousness
philosophy and the role of the younger and politically conscious teachers
played an important part in influencing some of the students at Bodibeng to
demonstrate in 1976.
Key words: black consciousness; joint matriculation board; free state; students
demonstration; Bodibeng High; Maokeng Students Arts Club; Bantu
education; South African students organisation; National Party; syllabus
*Email: [email protected]
ISSN: Print 0258-2473/Online 1726-1686

# 2011 Southern African Historical Society
DOI: 10.1080/02582473.2011.549376
http://www.informaworld.com
BODIBENG HIGH SCHOOL 103
Introduction
Immediately after 21:00 on the night of 24 August 1976 a group of students1 from
Bodibeng High School in Maokeng Township, Kroonstad, took to the streets in
solidarity with students in Soweto. They moved around the township pelting government
buildings with stones and breaking down some. However, before the dawn of the new day
the demonstration had been put to an end and all the student leaders had been rounded
up and arrested. Many more arrests followed in subsequent days and weeks. This was the
first display of open defiance of its kind by students at Bodibeng High since the 1940s.2
What influenced these students? Who were the students who led the demonstration? And
why did the demonstration take place in August two months after the eruption of the
16 June Soweto students’ uprising?3 These are some of the questions that this paper will
examine.
In attempting to explain the factor(s) that caused students at Bodibeng High School to
demonstrate, this paper will show that from the early 1970s the behaviour of some of
the students at Bodibeng, particularly those in Forms One and Two, changed and became
assertive and political. This change, the paper will contend, was precipitated by the
students’ embrace of the Black Consciousness (BC) philosophy as espoused by the South
African Student Organisation (SASO) and the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) in
general.
Not long after the 1976 student uprisings, which erupted in Soweto, various authors
such as Alan Brooks and Jeremy Brickhill, Baruch Hirson, and John Kane-Berman
produced work trying to explain the factors that caused the uprisings. In their explanations
they placed emphasis on different factors. Brooks and Brickhill highlighted changes in the
educational system;4 Hirson stressed the role played by the African working class and the
then banned African National Congress (ANC) as the main catalysts for the uprisings;5
moreover, Judge Cillie, chairman of the Cillie Commission,6 placed the immediate causes
of the uprisings on official inefficiency (that is, officials’ failure to read students’
1. The words ‘student’ and ‘pupil’ are used interchangeably to denote school-going youth. In 1942 Form One
students at Bantu High (in 1967 the name was changed to Bodibeng High) petitioned the school’s
authorities demanding to be taught Mathematics and not Arithmetic. Interview with Nana, Mahomo by
Tshepo Moloi for the ‘Local Histories and Present Realities’ Programme, Kempton Park, 10 April 2008.
(interviews, all with the author and for the ‘Local Histories and Present Realities’ Programme unless
otherwise stated on first reference).
2. The word ‘uprising’ (or in plural, uprisings) is used here to denote a more organized and sustained
students’ rebellion against the unjust system. And demonstration, on the other hand, is used to indicate an
unorganized and less sustained protest against an unjust system.
3. A. Brooks and J. Brickhill Whirlwind Before the Storm: The Origins and Development of the Uprising in
Soweto and the Rest of South Africa from June to December 1976 (London: International Defence and Aid
Fund for Southern Africa, 1980).
4. B. Hirson Year of Fire, Year of Ash: The Soweto Revolt: Roots of a Revolution? (London: Zed Press, 1979).
5. This was a government appointed commission of inquiry into the events of the Soweto (and elsewhere)
demonstrations. See H. Pohlandt-McCormick ‘‘‘I saw a nightmare . . .’’ Doing Violence to Memory: The
Soweto Uprising, June 16, 1976’ (University of Minnesota: PhD Thesis, 1999), 24.
6. Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Riots at Soweto and Elsewhere from the 16th of June 1976 to
the 28th of February 1977, Vol. 1 (Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand Government
Publications, 1980).
104 TSHEPO MOLOI
dissatisfactory mood over the Afrikaans issue), deficiency in police township intelligence,
and the role played by the agitators;7 and yet Kane-Berman singled out the influence of the
BC (philosophy) as the most important factor in explaining the volatility of the townships.8
Recently, some scholars such as Sifiso Ndlovu, Peter Lekgoathi, and Philip Bonner and
Noor Nieftagodien have developed new analyses to explain the student uprisings. Their
emphasis falls on the active agency of students. Moreover, they question the role of the BC.
For Ndlovu, who in 1976 was a Form Two student in Soweto, students in junior standards
(Standard Five to Form Two)9 were the major force in the cause of the uprisings, because
they were directly affected by the Department of Bantu Education’s (DBE) directive for
the compulsory use of Afrikaans in half of the subjects.10 Drawing from personal
experience, he notes that his former school Phefeni Junior Secondary was the first to
boycott classes (in May) and was later followed by other students from other higher
primary and junior secondary schools in Soweto.11 He argues, ‘I do not remember any
liberation movement, such as the BCM or the South African Student Movement (SASM)
contributing to our daily meetings and discussions.’12 Moreover, in a chapter in the second
volume of The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Ndlovu observes that SASM took a
decision at its conference in Roodepoort (West of Johannesburg) to support schools
affected by the Afrikaans directive well after his school had been on a go-slow before the
official class boycott on 17 May 1976.13
Lekgoathi’s study, on the other hand, focusing on rural areas in the former northern
Transvaal (now Limpopo Province), emphasises the role of the urban students who were
studying in schools in Lebowa as the driving force behind the uprisings in that area.14
According to him ‘. . . the most pivotal role in the disturbances at Matladi Secondary
School in Zebediela was played by urban students mostly boarders, particularly those
from the townships around Pretoria.’15 Bonner and Nieftagodien, in Alexandra: A History,
stress the combination of the government’s imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of
instruction and the deteriorating conditions in township schools, including massive
7. J. Kane-Berman, Soweto: Black Revolt, White Reaction (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1978); also see
C. Glaser, ‘We Must Infiltrate the Tsotsis: School Politics and Youth Gangs in Soweto, 19681976’,
Journal of Southern African Studies, 24, 2 (1998).
8. In today’s terminology Standard Five is Grade Seven and Form Two is Grade Nine.
9. When the DBE introduced Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in black schools it intended to
implement it in phases, starting from the lower level up to matric level. Thus it was first implemented from
Standard Five up to Form Two. These were Higher Primary and Junior Secondary levels, respectively.
Students at Senior secondary (that is, Form Three) and High school (that is, Forms Four and Five) were
not affected by the Afrikaans directive.
10. S. Ndlovu The Soweto Uprisings: Counter-memories of June 1976 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1998), 37.
11. Ibid., 7.
12. S.M. Ndlovu. ‘The Soweto Uprising’, in The Road to Democracy in South Africa: Vol. 2 (19701980)
(Pretoria: UNISA Press for the South African Democracy Education Trust, 2006), 339.
13. S.P. Lekgoathi, ‘Reconstructing the History of Educational Transformation in a Rural Transvaal
Chiefdom: The Radicalization of Teachers in Zebediela from the Early 1950s to the early 1990s (MA
Thesis, University of the Witwatersrand: Johannesburg, 1995), Chapter 4; also, see J.S.N. Mathabatha The
Struggle Over Education in the Northern Transvaal: The Case of Catholic Mission Schools, 19481994
(Amsterdam: Rozenburg Publishers, SAVUSA/NiZA, 2005).
14. Lekgoathi, ‘Reconstructing’, 167.
15. P. Bonner and N. Nieftagodien, Alexandra: A History (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2001), 201.
overcrowding, lack of facilities and poor standards of teaching.16 Finally, Bonner in the
chapter ‘The Soweto Uprising of June 1976’ singles out structural changes. He writes that
‘to understand the rebellion we need to trace the big social and economic changes that had
been taking place in Johannesburg and Soweto over the previous ten years’.17 But this is
not enough to explain the cause of the uprising. As Bonner admits ‘however, the structural
changes do not automatically lead to new social and political consequences’.18
In spite of the invaluable contribution these authors (and the Commission of Inquiry)
have made in the studies of the 1976 student uprisings in the country, there is room for
further research. Significantly, these studies downplay the role of teachers, particular the
BC-influenced teachers, in the uprisings. The exception is Clive Glaser’s work.19 From the
oral testimonies collected, mainly from former students and teachers at Bodibeng High
during the period under review, there is a strong suggestion that the BC philosophy,
communicated to the students by the BC-aligned teachers, played a pivotal role in
politicising some of the students at Bodibeng.
The argument advanced in this paper is that the appointment of the younger and BC-
aligned teachers to the teaching staff of Bodibeng High School in the early 1970s
challenged the ‘old ways’ of teaching and the older teachers’ authoritarian behaviour.
These newly appointed teachers had either graduated from the so-called ‘Bush’ Colleges,20
or had been expelled from the same colleges for political reasons. Furthermore, the
admission to the school of highly politicised students from other schools outside
Kroonstad also contributed to this challenge. These factors helped politicise some of
the students at Bodibeg. Finally, this paper will suggest that the behavioural change of
some of the students at Bodibeng also had negative consequences. It caused tensions
between the teachers and students and, perhaps, most importantly, seriously affected the
long-established impressive educational standards associated with the school.
Bodibeng21 High School: Fusing Politics and Education, 1940s 1950s

Like many other township schools in the country, Bodibeng High began as a church
school. In 1928 all the church schools, except for the Catholic Church, in the township
came together and formed the Bantu United School.22 Three years later the school started
experimenting in secondary education.23 In 1940, the school (then called Bantu High)
introduced a matriculation class,24 thus making it one of the two day high schools in the
16. P. Bonner ,‘The Soweto Uprising of June 1976’, in Turning Points in History: People, Places and Apartheid.
Book 5 (Johannesburg: STE Publishers, 2004), 31.
17. Ibid., 38.
18. Clive Glaser alludes to the role of teachers like Onkgopotse Tiro. See Glaser, ‘We Must Infiltrate the
Tsotsis’, 304305.
19. ‘Bush’ Colleges were African segregated universities established in the Bantustans.
20. Bodibeng is a name given to the school from the Sesotho name for the site where Kroonstad is ‘Bodibeng
ba Dikubu (The pool of hippopotami).
21. J.S.M. Setiloane The History of Black Education in Maokeng, Kroonstad (Pretoria: HSRC, 1997), 913.
22. Ibid., 50.
23. Ibid., 53.
24. P. Ntantala A Life’s Mosaic: The Autobiography of Phyllis Ntantala, UWC Mayibuye History Series No. 6
(Cape Town: Mayibuye Centre, David Philip, 1992), 84.
106 TSHEPO MOLOI
whole of the OFS to offer education to African students at the most senior level. The other
school was in Bloemfontein, also in the OFS.25 Other day schools in different parts of the
OFS only went up to the level of Junior Certificate (today Grade 10).26 Furthermore,
Bantu High was the first African school to have an African principal, Reginald Cingo.
Cingo became the principal in 1932. During this period other schools were under white
principals. In 1932, Healdtown High, for example, was under the principalship of Mr Ball,
a Welshman.27 This had a huge impact on the confidence of African communities. In 1966
the school registered with the Joint Matriculation Board (JMB).28 This meant that matric
students at Bodibeng took the University of South Africa (UNISA)-prepared examination
and not the Bantu Education Department’s Senior Certificate.
For these reasons, and later, the National Party (NP) government’s policy of
opposing the building of new secondary and high schools29 in urban areas, dictating
that all new provision for post-primary education should be directed almost exclusively
towards the homelands’,30 Bodibeng High attracted many students, especially those
from the surrounding farms and other townships in the OFS such as Edenville,
Heilbron, Bethlehem, Bothaville, Vredefort, but also from the neighbouring countries
such as Botswana and Lesotho.31 Nana Mahomo is an example of students who left
their hometowns and went to Bantu High because of the dearth of high schools.
Mahomo was born in 1930 in Vereeniging, south of Johannesburg, but grew up in
Edenville, a small farming town about 30 kilometers from Kroonstad. In 1942, after
completing his higher primary schooling, he enrolled at Bantu High to start his Form
1. Because of financial constraints at home, he had to leave school in 1945 after
obtaining his JC.32 This trend continued well into the 1970s. Inevitably, the student
body increased. Phyllis Ntantala in her autobiography estimates that when she arrived
at Bantu High in 1937, about a thousand students studied there, and the school then
started from Sub A to JC.33
Just as Bantu (and later Bodibeng High) attracted students from areas outside
Kroonstad, it was also a prized status for many a teacher to teach at Bantu High. It
was for this reason that the school was always staffed by teachers from different areas,
alongside locals. Dating back to the 1940s the school’s committee, under Cingo, identified
and employed some of the best qualified teachers in the country. Among the most notable
teachers employed at Bantu High during this period was Cingo, whose principalship at the
25. A difference should be noted between day schools and missionary schools. Day schools were not run my
missionaries and did not offer boarding facilities.
26. Ibid., 65; also see the interview with Peter Molotsi by Brown Maaba for the SADET Oral History Project,
Kroonstad, 7 January 2001. I am indebted to Dr Greg Houston, SADET’s executive director, for allowing
me to use this interview.
27. Ibid., 160.
28. Secondary school comprised of Forms One to Three, and High school started from Forms One to Five.
29. See, P. Bonner and L. Segal, Soweto: A History (Cape Town: Longman Maskew Miller, 1998), 78;
Setiloane, The History, 66.
30. See interview with Peter Molotsi. Molotsi became a key figure in the Pan Africanist Congress from the
1960s.
31. Interview with Nana, Mahomo.
32. Ntantala, A Life’s Mosaic, 84; also, see Setiloane, The History, 93.
33. Setiloane, The History, 51.
school spanned a period of more than 23 years.34 He was educated at the Clarkebury
Institute, in the Eastern Cape. Dorrington Matsepe joined the school after qualifying as a
teacher at Healdtown Training College in the Cape Province; likewise Archibald Campbell
Jordan and his wife, Phyllis Ntantala, who both held degrees from Fort Hare.35 According
to Ntantala, when she left Bantu High [in 1946] the school had a staff of 12, only three of
whom lacked college degrees but who were still qualified to teach at high school level.36 In
the 1950s, during Ishmael Mothibatsela’s tenure as the principal, there were 13 teachers
with university degrees out of the staff of 22 members.37
In 1948 the NP government came to power. It advocated for political, social, and
economic segregation. Because of this, it became inevitable that politics would filter down
into the school environment. It was during this period that some of the teachers at Bantu
High began to engage their students in political discussions about the situation in the
country. Peter Molotsi, who later became one of the founding members of the Pan
Africanist Congress (PAC), a breakaway organisation from the ANC, remembers that
the idea that this was our country was always instilled in almost every lesson. . . . The members
of the staff were people with a clear purpose . . . prepared to teach us and liberate us . . .
[Molotsi, continues:]
They delivered two messages, the syllabus and its need and [our] purpose in life . . . Our
teachers were so devoted that they actually taught beyond the syllabus: they taught our minds
to satisfy the needs of the syllabus but they then also prepared us as future citizens of a South
Africa that would be free. They delivered the massage of liberation.38
In addition to the political discussions, students at Bantu High were also encouraged to
engage the teachers without fear of reprisal. Mahomo, also a leading figure in the PAC in
the 1960s, recalls an incident at school when he argued against being punished. In his
words:
Well, the thing that I remember I didn’t like to be punished. So, I came up with this thing
that, you know, for medical reasons I cannot take physical punishment and I will go and do
manual work in the garden. Then he (principal Cingo) said ‘Can I produce evidence? I said
‘Well, it has to come from a doctor and the doctor will ask me why do I need it? Who’s
beating me?’ So, he found that it was difficult for me to accede to that request . . . I just said
‘Look, I’m a school child and I make mistakes . . . and I will take the consequences for
whatever I have done.39
34. Ibid., 8396; also see interview with Molotsio. It is not surprising that a significant number of educators at
Bantu High during this period were from the Eastern Cape, or had studied there. R.L. Peteni claims that
during the early 19th century the Ciskei and the Transkei, which were in the Eastern Cape, produced more
educated Africans than any other part of South Africa, R.L. Peteni, Towards Tomorrow: The History of the
African Teachers’ Association of South Africa (United States of America: The World Confederation of
Organisations of the Teaching Profession, 1979), 18.
35. Ntantala, A Life’s Mosaic, 85.
36. Ibid., 112.
37. Interview with Molotsi.
38. Interview with Mahomo.
39. Interview with Mahomo and Molotsi.
108 TSHEPO MOLOI
The confidence gained by the students as a result of the political discussions and relative
liberty to express themselves, encouraged them to form a student organisation, the OFS
African Student Association (OFSASA). Molotsi was a member of the association. He
recounts that the OFSASA and the Young Men Christian Association (YMCA) were the
main centres of conscientisation to students and they could not help but discuss about
the cost of living for their parents . . .40
To explain the political view evinced by some of the teachers at Bantu High, it is
important to understand their political involvement. Some of the politically minded
teachers such as Jordan, D. Ngqeleni, Cingo and Joe Kokozela were actively involved in
political and trade union formations. Cingo and Kokozela were involved in the township’s
branches of the All-African Convention (AAC) and the Industrial and Commercial
Workers Union (ICU), respectively. Jordan and Nqeleni, on the other hand, were
instrumental in the formation of the Society of Young Africa (SOYA). Parkies Setiloane,
a former member of SOYA recalls:
I was recruited in the 50s by Nqeleni to the AAC. I was a teacher then. And then we had a
youth organisation called SOYA, Society of Young Africa. You see, at the time the ANC was
using boycotts, resistance, and all that to fight oppression. But SOYA was saying educate the
masses first, so that the masses must know their importance in society. Yes, educate the
people first politically; it’s then that you can take action. I can still remember, eh, AC Jordan
came up and lectured us about the AAC. . . . We held meetings in Reverend [Z.R.]Maha-
bane’s study room at the Methodist Manse and discussed about oppression at the time.
Sometimes we would attend conferences.41
Some of the teachers at Bantu also participated in the formation of the OFS Teacher’s
Association (OFSATA). OFSATA was a provincial teacher organisation affiliated to the
African Teachers Association of South Africa (ATASA). In 1943 Jordan was the president-
elect of the association. According to Ntantala, a former member of the association,
OFSATA was formed to challenge the authorities’ position on the teaching profession: ‘the
teacher was not treated as a professional’, but also to ‘start looking critically at their
contracts and the conditions of service’.42 In his presidential address in Bloemfontein in
1944, Jordan focused on the neglected promise for democracy and equality after the
Second World War.43
The teaching method used by some of the teachers at Bantu of fusing the syllabus and
politics came to an end in the 1950s. This was probably because of the NP government’s
decision to tighten the belt on African political resistance during this period. Ntantala,
however, strongly believes it was because the OFSATA was then controlled by
40. Interview with Parkies Setiloane Parkies conducted by Tshepo Moloi, SAHA/Sunday Times Heritage
Project, Kroonstad, 7 December 2006; for a brief discussion about the role of SOYA, see Ntantala, A Life’s
Mosaic, 149150.
41. Ibid., 120.
42. Peteni, Towards Tomorrow, 72.
43. Ibid., 120. In 1943, A.C. Jordan, while teaching at Bantu High, was the president of OFSATA. By 1945
OFSATA and the Transvaal African Teacher’s Association liaised and coordinated, and they became the
most militant bodies in the whole country.
collaborators, who welcomed Bantu Education.44 Mothibatsela, the principal of Bantu

High from 1955 to 1961, was the Vice-President of OFSATA in the 1950s.45 Concurring
with Ntantala, Jonathan Hyslop observes that the reason the teachers became apolitical
was because they ‘felt strongly that they had something to lose by engaging in militancy’.46
According to him ‘. . . ATASA’s ideology proceeded to assert that teachers should abjure
any form of political activity and that political and educational concerns were absolutely
separate’.47 The reluctance, or even avoidance, to discuss politics with the students by the
majority of the ‘older’ teachers at Bantu High, and later at Bodibeng High, should not,
however, be construed to mean that none of the teachers made attempts to engage the
students politically (more about this below). But these teachers were few and very cautious
in their approach. John Taje, who matriculated in 1962, remembers that principal Setiloane
would ‘occasionally talk about these things (that is, Sharpeville Massacre) during the
parade (assembly). He’d just make us aware of what was happening in the country and
would leave it there’.48
One of the reasons often emphasised by my interviewees when trying to explain the
teachers’ reluctance to discuss politics with the students, particularly in the 1970s, is that
Bodibeng High was bursting with informers, both teachers and students, especially
students whose parents were members of the Special Branch (SB) of the South African
Police (SAP). In his book, Setiloane points out that ‘Those who harboured feelings of the
oppression of the African people, kept such feelings to themselves for fear of incarceration.
There were informers everywhere: in the community and in the schools . . .’49 The SB made
concerted efforts to recruit members of the community to spy for them. Ditsietsi Mmei,
who was born in Maokeng but attended school at Katlehong High, recalls that in 1977
after fleeing from Katlehong for political reasons the Mokatsanyane twins, who were
members of the SB in Kroonstad, attempted to recruit him.50
Tom Lodge comments that
during the 1960s the police were granted unlimited powers of arrest and detention as well as
increasingly lavish budgets. The police recruited an army of informers, whose activities
promoted a climate of fear and distrust, effectively paralyzing any political initiative
amongst Africans.51
In the 1960s Bodibeng High School’s character had changed from that of the 1940s. The
fusion of politics and education had ended. The teachers and students were expected to
solely focus on the syllabus. This paper will now turn to the quiescent period in the history
of Bodibeng High School.
44. Setiloane, The History, 109114; 166.

45. J. Hyslop ‘Social Conflicts over African Education in South Africa from the 1940s to 1976’ (PhD Thesis,
University of the Witwatersrand, 1990), 181.
46. Ibid., 354.
47. Interview with John Taje, Bloemfontein, 21 May 2009.
49. Interview with Ditsietsi Mmei, Naledi, Soweto, 18 September 2009.
50. T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa Since 1945 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1983), 321.
51. P. Bonner and N. Nieftagodien, Kathorus: A History (Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman), 63.
110 TSHEPO MOLOI
Bodibeng High’s Quiescent Era, 1960s to the Beginning of the 1970s
In the 1960s the NP government experienced two equally important developments. First, it
was successful, albeit temporarily, effectively to break the back of black political resistance
inside the country. Second, it also enjoyed economic boom. Foreign investment was
directed into the country and many people found employment. Living conditions
improved. For example, Bonner and Nieftagodien note that ‘huge amounts of foreign
investment flooded into the country propelling an annual growth of 9.3%’.52 Hyslop adds,
‘the 1960s saw phenomenal increases in employment. In manufacturing, the number of
employees of all races soared from 653,000 in 1960 to 1,069,000 in 1970.’53 Kroonstad also
benefited from this economic boom. ‘In Kroonstad’, Setiloane writes that ‘in the 1960s
there were more shops, garages, restaurants, hotels and suburbs. Factories which were non-
existent in the 1930s and 1940s had now sprung up. Job opportunities were numerous’.54 A
significant number of people living in Maokeng, especially those who did not possess
professional qualifications which would easily maximise their employment opportunities,
found employment in the rapidly expanding economy of Kroonstad.55 It was against this
background that the political quiescence prevailing at Bodibeng during this period should
be understood.
Notwithstanding the changes, students from all over the country continued to enroll at
Bodibeng in their large numbers. Steel Setiloane, who became the principal of the school in
1962, notes that classes were big, some numbering up to more than 50 students per class.56
He estimates that, in 1962, the school had a roll of 400 to 500 students, and in 1972 it had
increased to 1,602, comprising of 831 boys and 771 girls, with a few dropouts in between.
In 1974 it further increased to 1,664: 866 (boys) and 798 (girls).57 In similar vein, Setiloane
continued the trend of recruiting some of the best-qualified teachers. For example, John
Taje, who held a Bachelor of Arts degree and a University Education Diploma from the
University of the North (also known as Turfloop), was employed as an assistant teacher at
Bodibeng in 1968. What this suggests is the school’s unyielding quest to provide the best
education to African students by recruiting among the best-qualified teachers in the
country.
Total dedication and commitment to studies were expected from both teachers and
students. In his first meeting with his staff, Setiloane discussed the policies and procedures
to be followed in the administration of the school. Among the issues emphasised in the
meeting were daily preparations, research, and daily lesson plans. In short, teachers were
expected to teach and nothing more. Taje recalls that they were subjected to rote learning.
Jacob Ramotsoela, a student at Bodibeng in the 1960s concurs: ‘. . . With us teaching was
rote learning: you do Mathematics, you move out. Another teacher comes in. He does
52. J. Hyslop, ‘Social Conflicts over African Education in South Africa from the Late 1940s to 1976’ (PhD
thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 1990).
54. A sizeable number of the former students at Bodibeng in the 1970s interviewed recalled that their parents
worked in town as manual labourers or were employed in the suburbs as domestic workers.
55. Ibid., 131.
56. Ibid., 159.
57. Interview with Jacob Ramotsoela, Kroonstad, 16 April 2008.
Woodwork with you and then out. That type of thing. They could not say a single word
about [Dr Hendrik] Verwoerd or Bantu Education.’58
Students, as already mentioned above, were also expected to maintain a high
standard of education at school. To achieve this, Setiloane made it compulsory for
them to attend extra classes. Girls attended morning classes, an hour before the school
starts. Afternoon classes began at 15:00 to 17:00 and these were attended by both girls
and boys. In the evening boys only were expected to return to school to attend night
study, from 19:00 to 21:00. Girls were excluded from night studies for security reasons.
These extra classes were held from Monday to Thursday.59 Setiloane argues that
the ‘extension of this study opportunity to the students was very necessary when one
considered the lack of facilities at their homes or in the township’.60 Extra classes were
taken very seriously and were monitored by teachers and prefects, and failure to attend
meant punishment. Tsiu Oupa Matsepe, who matriculated in 1969, remembers that
there was a time when the whole school was punished for missing the afternoon study.61
In 1975 it was entered in the school’s logbook that Sipho Caluza, Jonas Ramotsoela,
and Solomon Mphatsoe were each given six cuts for being absent from evening
classes.62
In addition, Setiloane made it compulsory for students to speak English and Afrikaans
at school. These operated on a weekly basis, with English alternating with Afrikaans.63
Failure to adhere to this regulation resulted in punishment. Corporal punishment to
enforce discipline became the order of the day. Students at Bodibeng accepted punishment
without question or resistance. This was unlike in the 1980s when one of the students’ main
demands was the abolishing of corporal punishment. Matsepe recalls that before he
matriculated in 1969 corporal punishment was meted out even to the matriculants and
there was nothing untoward about that. In his words
These were the years at high school from Form 1 to Form 5 where, for example, we were
punished even at matric level. It was unheard of even in our time. When we met other
students from other colleges, they just didn’t understand how you could still be punished.
When we went out of matric, we were still simply children and we behaved like children . . .
And we found it to be normal, because that’s how we were brought up. There was nothing
wrong.64
This estranged the relationship between the students and teachers. Unlike in the 1940s
students were not encouraged to engage their teachers. There was always fear of reprisal.
Ramotsoela remembers that during his school days their principal, Mr Setiloane, was
unapproachable. According to him ‘. . . You wouldn’t come near the principal. He would
58. On Wednesday there were no afternoon classes because of sporting activities. But boys were expected to
attend night studies.
60. Interview with Tsui Oupa Matsepe, Welkom, 15 April 2008
61. Logbook, Bodibeng High School, 18 September 1975.
62. See Setiloane, The History, 132133.
63. Interview with Matsepe, 28 March 2007; 15 April 2008.
64. Interview with Ramotsoale.
112 TSHEPO MOLOI
tell you ‘‘you were a child’’. It was not nice. Even to see him, it was not nice.’65 Similarly,
David Lebethe, a Form 2 student at Bodibeng in 1972, adds
Our principal was not only strict to us, but was feared and respected by both the educated
and uneducated. Every time he would appear, even if he was a distance away, you’d make
sure that you don’t cross his path. That’s how he was.66
Due to this authoritarian behaviour, students at Bodibeng did not dare question their
teachers about anything beyond the syllabus. Equally, the teachers did not feel obliged to
discuss or engage students about any subject not related to the syllabus. Similarly, this
authoritarian behaviour was also practised by parents at home. Parents discouraged their
children from becoming involved in politics. Matsepe remembers that his parents, who were
teachers, tried to dissuade him from participating in political activities by constantly
reminding him that he would be arrested just like [Nelson] Mandela.67 Taje, on the other
hand, recalls that his parents, especially his father did not entertain political discussion in
his house. He observes ‘At home we never talked politics. My father was a bit conservative.
There was no room for politics at home.’68
However, in spite of the repressive nature of the government, authoritarian behaviour of
the teachers and parents, and the absolute desire to provide the best education for the
students at Bodibeng, there were a few teachers who went against the grain and,
cautiously, engaged in political discussions with their students. Setiloane, the principal, is
an example of such a teacher. Setiloane, in addition to being the principal, also taught
English. Tom Mokuane, a Form Three student at Bodibeng in 1971, remembers that it was
Setiloane who conscientised them by telling them about the guerillas. He recalls that he
used to narrate to them that the guerrillas were ‘still in training, but they are coming back’.
Because of this, Mokuane and his classmates began to have an interest in politics. They
started asking themselves questions like ‘Why can’t we mix (that is, associate) with white
people at school, in soccer games or debat[ing] sessions?’69
However, Mokuane remembers that, even though Setiloane used to do this, he was
equally quick to discourage them from joining liberation movements. Mokuane remembers:
There was this guy Seroto [Matikwane], he was bold . . . and he would ask lots of questions.
I remember one day when Mr Setiloane was busy talking about these guerillas he asked:
‘How can one join them?’Mr Setiloane said ‘No, no, you can’t join them because there is no
place you can go to and say you want to register.70
In as much as he tried, Setiloane was unable to discourage and dissuade all the students.
Some, like Seroto, after passing his JC, left Kroonstad for Johannesburg, and finally fled
the country into exile to join Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the ANC’s military wing.
65. Interview with David Lebethe, J23 April 2008, Johannesburg.

66. Interview with Matsepe.
67. Interview with Taje.
68. Interview with Tom Mokuane, 18 April 2008, Kroonstad.
69. Ibid.
70. http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/lives-of-courage/pages/wall/deaths-exile.htm [accessed 25 August
2008]; interview with Mokouane.
Unfortunately, he was one of the casualties during the raid by the South African Defence
Force (SADF) in Lesotho in1982.71
In spite of the willingness, at great risk, by some of the teachers such as Setiloane and
Mr Matlabe,72 a Geography teacher, to discuss issues beyond the syllabus (or to link the
syllabus with what was happening in the country), with their students, there still remained
clearly defined boundaries between themselves and the students. Ramotsoela remembers
that even after he had been employed as an assistant teacher at Bodibeng (in 1972) he was
still treated as a student. He recalls that the ‘older’ teachers would always instruct him and
Matsepe, who was also employed as an assistant teacher, to leave the staffroom when ‘they
were discussing important matters’.73
Evidently, although some of the ‘older’ teachers were prepared to engage in political
discussions with the students, they still retained their authoritarian tendencies. However,
this did not stop students from finding information about the political situation in the
country. Ironically, this was, again, encouraged indirectly by the teachers. At Bodibeng
High students were encouraged to read daily newspapers. It was in the daily newspapers
like The World and The Post that the students read about the daily events and political
commentaries. Glaser notes that ‘the newspapers even ran some penetrative local news and
commentary which slipped through the censorship net’.74 Privately, then, some of the
students discussed these issues. This was evident in Joseph Litabe’s interview. According to
him, before they attended night study ‘someone would bring a newspaper and we would
hang around on the verandas of shops close by and we would be reading the newspaper
and discussing the news’.75 Unanticipated by the students at Bodibeng, newspapers would
prove to be a useful source of information for them, leading to the August demonstration.
The early 1970s saw a fundamental shift in the relationship between some of the
teachers, especially those who were younger and had been to universities, and the students
at Bodibeng. This signalled the end of the old ways of doing things and the beginning of a
new period in the history of Bodibeng High School. Although Bodibeng High generally
strived to employ qualified teachers, but like many other urban schools, they also
experienced a shortage of teachers. ‘The shortage of teachers’, Hyslop argues, ‘was partly
created by the government’s application of influx control to qualified people who would
otherwise have accepted posts [in urban areas]’.76 To overcome this problem, the principal
and the school’s committee of Bodibeng High employed some of its former students. In
fact, Taje, a former student at Bodibeng and in 1971 was employed as a teacher at his alma
mater, asserts that this had always been the school’s policy under Setiloane. According to
him, Setiloane sought bursaries for some of his matriculants to study at universities, on
71. Mr Matlabe challenged the official Geography textbook, arguing that it did not reflect the true border of
Lesotho. According to him the border of Lesotho went as far as the Vaal River. Interview with Mokuane.
72. Interview with Ramotsoela.
73. Glaser, ‘We must infiltrate’, 304.
74. Interview with Joseph Nchaga Litabe conducted by Tshepo Moloi, SAHA/Sunday Times Heritage Project,
24 January 2007, Kroonstad.
75. J. Hyslop. ‘State Education Policy and the Social Reproduction of the Urban African Working Class: The
Case of the Southern Transvaal 19551976’, Journal of South African Studies, 14, 3 (1988), 548589.
76. Interview with John Taje, 21 May 2009, Bloemfontein.
114 TSHEPO MOLOI
condition that they would return to teach at Bodibeng.77 Students who had not completed
their university studies were employed as assistant teachers and those who had obtained
university degrees were employed on a permanent basis. This was a new calibre of teachers:
young and highly politicised. For some of the students at Bodibeng this was a turning
point.
Teachers and the Role of Black Consciousness Philosophy, Early 1970s 1976
78

In 1970, a year after the launch of SASO, a number of students who had passed matric at
Bodibeng were admitted in different universities to further their studies. Among these,
many went to Turfloop University. It was at Turfloop that many joined SASO and began to
engage in serious political discussions. They became adherents of the BC philosophy.
Matsepe remembers
Then 1969 I matriculated and decided to go to university . . . The wind of black power [was]
emerging in America and then the concept of Black Consciousness arises. At university if
you talk ANC, you know there was going to be trouble. It spelled trouble for you to belong
to the PAC. The one thing any informer could not do is to say you’re being political if you
are talking about blackness. That is not a political concept; it is a cultural concept that says I
am living out my blackness to its fullness. And we would debate issues of black
consciousness. And then life became exciting to me79
Ramotsoela was another student from Bodibeng who studied at Turfloop during this
period. He recalls that his political awareness developed when he started attending the
SASO meetings at university. He explains: ‘these meetings politicized us. They used to
discuss very important political issues like this thing of whites ruling [that is, administering]
the university’.80 Matsepe, on the other hand, claims that through the BC philosophy he
became psychologically liberated and thus began to take pride in being black. In the
process, he began to challenge everything that denigrated his blackness.81 Saleem Badat
writes ‘The positive doctrine that SASO proclaimed itself to uphold was the concept of
Black Consciousness, which was defined as an ‘attitude of mind, a way of life’’.82 Steve
Biko, the first president of SASO, in a paper produced for SASO leadership course,
probably in December 1971, explained the BC philosophy as follows: ‘. . . Black
77. Giving evidence in the Black Peoples Convention (BPC)-SASO Trial in 1976, Steve Biko described SASO
as follows: ‘Is a black student organization working for the liberation of the black man, first, from
psychological oppression by themselves through inferior complex and, secondly, from the physical one
accruing out of living in a white racist society’. I Write What I Like: Steve Biko A Selection of His
Writings (Johannesburg: Picador Africa, 2004), 110.
78. Interview with Matsepe, 28 March 2008.
79. Interview with Ramotsoela.
80. Interview with Matsepe, 28 March 2008; Steve Biko, president of SASO, giving evidence in the SASO Trial
in 1976 argued that the term black in South Africa is normally in association with negative aspects. See
Biko: I Write What I Like, 114.
81. B. Saleem Black Student Politics: Higher Education and Apartheid, From SASO to SANCO 19681990
(Pretoria: HSRC, 1999), 89
82. Biko: I Write What I Like, 5257; also see D. Woods, Biko (New York, Penguin Books), 175.
Consciousness in essence . . . seeks to demonstrate the lie that black is an aberration from
the ‘normal’ which is white.’83 In short, what the BC philosophy strived to achieve was to
instil pride in black people. It was for this reason that SASO developed the slogan ‘I’m
black and I’m proud’.
In 1972, Turfloop University was closed, following a strike by students after the
expulsion of Onkgopotse Abram Tiro because of his politically loaded speech at a
graduation ceremony at the university.84 In the speech, inter alia, he questioned the
different and unequal education systems used in South Africa for whites, blacks, Coloureds
and Indians. In conclusion, he demanded a system of education common to all like in
America.85 Matsepe was among the 1,14686 students who were expelled. Ramotsoela was
also suspended. They both returned to Kroonstad, and before long were both appointed as
assistant teachers at Bodibeng High. Matsepe taught General Science and Ramotsoela
Mathematics.87
Unknown to the authorities at the time, the expulsion of students like Tiro and others,
helped spread the BC philosophy throughout the country. For instance, these students, just
Matsepe and Ramotsoela, found employment at different schools across the country. Tiro,
for example, was employed as an assistant teacher at Morris Isaacson High School in
Soweto. While there he had a profound influence on Tsietsi Mashinini, whom he taught
History. Long after Tiro had left (and assassinated in Botswana), Mashinini was to lead the
students on 16 June 1976, demanding the abolishing of using Afrikaans as the medium of
instruction in schools.88
It was not long before the new staff members made their presence felt. They broke the
long-observed boundaries between the teachers and students. They not only encouraged
students to express themselves in the classroom, but also overtly introduced them to
political issues. Mpopetsi Dhlamini, former member of staff at Bodibeng, working as a
teacher-clerk, remembers the impact the new staff members mostly from Turfloop had
on the learning environment at Bodibeng. He explains:
Let me just call [name] them. It was, eh, Sam Chabedi, Charles Kgotlagomang, eh, Taje
from Turfloop. And then Mokete Rankwe, Sipho Koekoe, Rebecca Tlhagane . . . Then
83. A2176 HP, SASO Collection, Onkgopotsi Tiro’s speech.

84. A2176 SASO Collection, ‘Speech by Tiro’, University of the Witwatersrand Historical and Literary
Papers.
85. M. Vizikhungo Mzamane, B. Maaba, and N. Biko ‘The Black Consciousness Movement’, in The Road to
Democracy in South Africa: Vol. 2 (19701980) (Pretoria: UNISA Press for the South Africa Democracy
Education Trust), 143.
86. The employment of university dropouts did not only take place at Bodibeng, but in many other townships
as well. For example, Tiro taught for a while at Morris Isaacson High. See L. Shuster, A Burning Hunger:
One Family Struggle Against Apartheid (London: Jonathan Cape, 2004), 54.
87. Schuster A Burning Hunger, 54; Mandla Seleoane was also expelled from Turfloop University in 1972. He
found employment at Sozama Secondary School in Mhluzi, Middelburg, in the then eastern Transvaal
(today Mpumalanga Province). While at Sozama he influenced students to the extend that they formed the
Mhluzi Student Organisation and in 1976 organised the uprising against being taught in Afrikaans.
Interview with Ben Mokoena, Middelburg, 17 February 2010. Personal interview. See also, P. Holden and
S. Mathabatha ‘The Politics of Resistance: 19481990’, in, P. Delius, ed., Mpumalanga: History and
Heritage (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2007), 410414
88. Interview with Dhlamini, Kroonstad, 16 January 2009.
116 TSHEPO MOLOI
Tshidi Mabote. And then Oudag Ramotsoela. Well, there was a guy called Philip
Hlatswayo, but he was from Fort Hare; and then there was Oupa Matsepe. Remember some
of them came after the time of Onkgopotse Tiro and these guys were political when they
came around, even their approach to us. Because, as I said, before Bodibeng was strict. No,
not strict but it was disciplined. But these guys came with relaxed attitudes compared to the
older teachers, who emphasized more on discipline (i.e. corporal punishment). Now these
guys would emphasize [that] children must just be relaxed. I mean by way of discussions. But
discipline still be there, you see.89
David Lebethe, a Form 2 student at Bodibeng in 1972, concurs that there was something
different about the new teachers. In his words
My Form 2 in 1972 . . . it was around the same time that there was a national strike by black
universities in the country. Your Turfloop, Ngoye or Zululand University. Now most of the
students from those universities came to teach in black schools, and there were some who
came to Bodibeng. One of which was Oupa Matsepe. Who else came to teach? Eh . . . Sipho
Koekoe, who is now late . . . Over and above the task that they were there to perform, there
was something striking about them, which is that they would wear . . . (pauses) wigs. Not the
artificial wig, but, I mean, they wore your afro hair . . . They were easy going themselves.
And, you know, unlike the sterk (hardened) teachers, who would find it difficult to even
correct [you], but with them it was always easier. And they would sacrifice a lot. They would
not be working your strict office hours: from 07h00 to 14h00. They would be there until very
late. Even come to night studies at times, Saturday studies at times; to come and assist some
of us who were struggling with our subjects . . . Now that was something very striking about
them.90
The newly appointed teachers challenged everything their former teachers believed in. They
avoided punishing students by means of caning them. They believed in talking to the
students. This had a huge impact on the students. The latter adored and respected their
new teachers. The teacherstudent relationship changed. For the first time, after a while,
students felt they could approach their teachers for advice, even on matters beyond the
syllabus. Lebethe remembers that in his ‘one-on-one meetings with Matsepe he came to
know more about the BC’.91 However, it was not all the new staff members, younger and
highly political, who did not believe in corporal punishment. Matsepe remembers that
some of his colleagues like ‘Scara Kgotlagomang and Taje used the stick’.92
Matsepe, more than his colleagues, tried from the onset to make it his mission, with
every little chance he got, to introduce students to the BC philosophy. Mokhele Petrose
Theletsane, a Form One student at Bodibeng in 1975, remembers vividly how Matsepe
introduced him to the ideas of BC. He remarks,
I did my Form One at Bodibeng in 1975. That’s where I first met Mr Matsepe. Well, at that
time he was still not qualified but taught us Science. And that’s where I became politically
conscious, because he used a simple thing like when we wrote our names on the [cover page]
89. Interview with Lebethe, 23 April 2008.

90. Ibid.
91. Interview with Matsepe, 15 April 2008.
92. Interview with Theletsane, 16 April 2008; also, see interview with Nhlapo.
of the book like Mokhele Petrose Theletsane. He would call you and say Hey,
mmampharoane hake o eme ba hobone bobejane (Hey, fool stand up so that everyone can
see you’re a baboon). Then he would ask you what was the meaning of this, referring to your
English name? First time we didn’t understand what was going on until he asked us where
did we get our English names and their origins. Do we know the history behind those
names? He started teaching us our own history. He explained to us what we must do. I don’t
think even the principal would have been happy to hear about that. You see . . . he would
instruct us to remove our English names from our books. He would say Hlakola nonsense eo
mampharoane (Remove that nonsense, fool). From Form One onwards all my books were
written Mokhele Theletsane. That’s why even today you see that I only use Mokhele
Theletsane.93
In similar vein, Tsepo Oliphant remembers,

Oupa Matsepe. He was the teacher. Oupa would remind us around March during the parade
to say ‘Hey, people lost their lives because of the passes’. Yes, during the parade. He would
say it. We would cry during the parade all of us. And after his [Matsepe’s] parade you’d feel
like if you could meet a white man, you know.94
Realising the ideological impact he was making on the students through his teachings of
the BC philosophy, Matsepe, with the help of Mokuane, felt it was time to turn the BC
teachings into practice. He established the Maokeng Students Art Club (MASAC), where
students could meet to do art work, but the main objective of the club was to politicise as
many students as possible. Mokuane recalls
from the beginning our aim with Oupa [Matsepe] was to give them [students] latitude to
express themselves . . . And then this freedom of expression we emphasized that they should
not be afraid to express their views. Now that is where issues came up like social inequality:
‘But why do we live like this? And [Oupa] would come up with his own views and opinions.95
Some of the members of MASAC were Tsepo Oliphant, Mkhulu Nhlapo, Lephephelo
Mosala, and Chabeli Chabalala.96 One of the highlights of the art club was Chabalala’s
painting. Oliphant remembers that the latter drew a painting of a black hand strangling
then Prime Minister of South Africa, John Vorster. This, he claims, was admired by all the
students at school.97
Inevitably, the political influence infused on the students by teachers such as Matsepe
and others prompted the students to begin to question the national political status quo
and, later, to challenge the school’s authorities. Oliphant recalls that they started
questioning the blatant racial discrimination prevailing in Kroonstad. They questioned
why their parents were forced to stand outside the shop owned by whites when buying (or
93. Interview with Tsepo, Oliphant, 14 November 2007, Kroonstad; Matsepe was referring to the Sharpeville
massacre of 21 March 1960
94. Interview with Mokuane.
95. Nhlapo and Lephephelo were the leaders of the revolt and were detained for their role.
96. Interview with Oliphant.
97. The local municipality had declared a curfew started from 9 o’clock at night. No black person was
supposed to be in the streets except for those who had Special Permits.
118 TSHEPO MOLOI
told to use a separate entrance)? Why their parents were beaten when returning home from
work at 9 o’clock (at night)?98 And why the discriminatory laws did not affect everybody
(that is, whites).99
It was against this background that some of the students at Bodibeng gradually became
defiant and assertive. As was the case in many black townships around the country in the
early 1970s, some of the students at Bodibeng formed the branch of SASM in 1973. Its
members were Lebethe, Papi Mogoje, Bulara Liphotho, Neo Sello, Prince Mahloane,
Lesole Morobe, and Lee Noge. SASM came into existence in 1968 but was, initially, known
as the African Students’ Movement until it changed its name in 1972 and became SASM.
Its objective was to meet the needs of the urban-based school-going youth.100 From the
beginning, the branch of SASM at Bodibeng was besieged by a myriad of problems. For
instance, it failed to mobilise the mass of students at school. David Lebethe, the branch’s
first and only chairman, recalls that their branch had fewer than 20 members. In addition,
members lacked commitment. The leadership was constantly harrassed by the security
personnel. As time went on, the problems compounded and were no longer bearable,
especially police harassment. Some of the key figures lost interest and the branch ceased to
exist.
However, before it collapsed the Bodibeng branch of SASM embarked on perhaps one
of its most important campaigns. True to its tradition of adherence to the BC, the SASM
organised a boycott against the visit to Kroonstad of Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi in
1973.101 Buthelezi was seen by many in the BC as a sellout, because of his pro-Bantustan
position. In the June 1971 issue of the SASO Newsletter, Steve Biko turned to the problem
of black leaders who operated within the framework of apartheid. In his article,
‘Fragmentation of Black Resistance’, he . . . singled out Chief Buthelezi, once ‘regarded
as the bastion of resistance to the institution of a territorial authority in Zululand, and
accused him of having swayed many people’s minds in favour of accepting Bantustans
and the ethnic politics it represented’.102 Although the visit proceeded, and the students
and teachers from Bodibeng packed the stadium to welcome Buthelezi, Lebethe and his
branch members, and Matsepe, boycotted the event.
In spite of the demise of the Bodibeng SASM branch, the seeds of defiance had been
sown at Bodibeng High. Some of the students began openly to defy their teachers. In 1975
a group of students in matric refused to be punished because they felt that the teachers
were not following the schools’ rules of using corporal punishment. Lewele Modisenyane, a
matric student in 1975, explains ‘. . . they were supposed to record your offences and the
method of punishment should be appropriate’.103 Then the students boycotted lessons.
This resulted in their suspension.104 Not long after the boycott, students protested against
98. Interview with Oliphant.

99. N. Diseko ‘The Origins and Development of the South African Students’ Movement (SASM): 19681976’,
Journal of Southern African Studies, 18, 1 (1991), 4157.
100. Interview with Lebethe; also see Bodibeng High School Logbook, 22 October 1973. I have a copy of this
logbook in my possession.
101. Mzamane et al., ‘The Black Consciousness’, 128.
102. Interview with Lewele Modisenyane, Kroonstad, 9 July 2008.
103. Ibid.; also see Bodibeng High School Logbook, 22 September 1975. I have a copy of this logbook in my
possession.
104. Interview with Modisenyane.
the school’s policy on subjects. Bodibeng had always emphasised the teaching of History.
Students, irrespective of the stream they chose, had to do History. Feeling aggrieved by this
policy, students opposed it and signed a petition in protest.105
Inspired by their seniors, and influenced by the BC philosophy, some of the students in
the lower standards at Bodibeng organised a solidarity demonstration with the students in
Soweto. In the second half of 1976 they took to the streets. The timing of the
demonstration suggests that students at Bodibeng did not demonstrate against the
compulsory use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. In fact, from the oral testimonies
collected from former students at Bodibeng in the 1970s there is evidence to suggest that
Afrikaans was not an issue at Bodibeng. As already shown elsewhere in the paper,
Setiloane made it compulsory for students to speak English and Afrikaans at school.
Because of this, students at Bodibeng developed the capacity to communicate in Afrikaans.
But Taje also points out that Bodibeng took advantage of the department’s exemption
regulation that a school could apply to the DBE to be exempted from teaching in
Afrikaans only if it did not have teachers who could teach other subjects in Afrikaans.106
Taje this was for the school some form of resistance against the department’s policy on
Afrikaans, because the school had teachers who were qualified to teach in Afrikaans.
Theletsane, who was in Form 2 in 1976, concurs:
They were very good . . . particularly those who taught us Accountancy. It was Mr. Jackie
Phalatse . . . Sometimes when he was absent it would be Mr Philip Hlatshwayo. Hlatshwayo
was so good in Afrikaans. He even had an honors [degree] in Afrikaans. At some stage he
was an interpreter at Court, and then here it was only Afrikaans.107
Just like the students in Soweto, students at Bodibeng needed a spark to cause the
explosion.
This was provided by Mekodi Arcilia Morailane, a Science teacher. Morailane
completed her matric at Bantu High School. Thereafter, she enrolled in a number of
universities, a subject she felt not particularly important to discuss in the interview. One
of the universities she attended was the University of Natal in the mid 1960s, at its
Wentworth Campus. She remembers ‘. . . at Wentworth that’s where there were lots of
activities political activities in our campus. That’s where I became aware of politics.
We were together with Steve Biko.108 In 1974 Morailane enrolled at Ngoye University
(also known as University of Zululand) after a short stint at Turfloop. ‘When I arrived it
was during that time when that person was killed by a letter bomb’ (that is, Onkgopotse
Tiro).109 Morailane joined the staff of Bodibeng High at the beginning of 1976.110
Although she was not active in politics, she was politically aware. She brought that
political awareness with her to Bodibeng. As a result, she could not stand idle when she
felt the need to conscientise the students.
105. Interview with Taje.

106. Interview with Theletsane.
107. Interview with Arcilia Mekodi Morailane, Balfour, Mpumalanga Province, 16 July 2008.
108. Ibid.
109. Ibid.; Bodibeng High School Logbook, 27. 1. 1976. I have a copy of this logbook in my possession
110. Interview with Nhlapo.
120 TSHEPO MOLOI
The demonstration in August, according to my interviewees, was instigated by what

Morailane had said in class to the students. Nhlapo, one of the student leaders, explains,
In 1976 [Ms] Morailane was teaching me. She had a hidden influence; it was not open. But I
can’t blame her because you could be arrested and you would be taken away. Listen to what
she said ‘You are failing my tests, but you attend everyday. What about Soweto students who
are unable to attend? I think they only attend two days and they pass tests.’ You could hear
that this person is taking you somewhere, but she is not direct. She wanted to be on the safe
side, you see. In Soweto it had already started. After . . . our class, me and Makhema he is
late now I said to him ‘Did you hear what Ms. Morailane said?’ ‘Yes, she is right. But she
did not really mean that’, Makhema said. I said ‘Yes, I know she did not mean that’111
In an interview with Joseph ‘Fifi’ Nkomo, a Form Two student at Bodibeng, also concurs
that Morailane indirectly urged them to demonstrate.112 In similar vein, Khotso Sesele, a
Form Two student in 1976, remembers
it was after June the 16th when she [Morailane] one day came into the class and shouted ‘Le
dutse kamona, thaka tsa lona di a lwana kwana ka ntle’ (You are sitting here in the classroom,
doing nothing when other students are fighting out there).113
However, Morailane remembers this incident differently. She recalls that, after overhearing
some of the students from her school complaining that they had read in the newspaper that
students from Soweto had threatened to come to Kroonstad to beat them because they had
failed to support them, she felt obliged to ‘educate’ her Form Two students about
solidarity. She explains,
I decided that let me teach these children about solidarity, because that’s what they could
express to the kids in Soweto. Otherwise there was no way that they could assist them. I told
these children that ‘You must know there is something called solidarity. Solidarity is like
when you sympathize.
She moved from class to class delivering the same message. Sometimes she went beyond her
advice about solidarity. In her words:
I remember I spoke in the Form Two (G) class but I can’t remember exactly what I said to
them. Oh, I said ‘I mean, you could run around. . .’ But you [must] remember that I’m a
teacher, so I couldn’t say to them they must break down beerhalls and so on. I was just
letting them know that it was possible for them to do something, but must be careful that
they are not arrested. Yes, I said that! But I said it a little.114
111. Interview with Nkomo, 14 April 2008, Kroonstad.

112. Interview with Khotso Sesele, 13 April 2008, Kroonstad.
113. Interview with Morailane.
114. Interview with Nhlapo. This song is one of the old Sesotho folk songs. It is about a woman who complains
that her husband always asks her where she has been. Finally, the woman says ntho ena ke masaoana,
meaning this is nonsense. Also see interview with Litabe and Nkomo.
Probably, feeling ashamed following Morailane’s demeaning comment in class, but also
encouraged by the political lessons they had been receiving from some of the radical
teachers at school, some of the students hastily decided to take action. However, lack of
experience is evident in the planning (or lack thereof) and the execution of the
demonstration. The demonstration was not properly communicated to all the students
at Bodibeng. Only a few male students were privy to the information about the planned
demonstration (this is because the demonstration was discussed during night study); and
students in senior classes, Forms Four and Five were not involved in the plans; and the
leaders had no idea what they wanted to achieve, except to express solidarity with the
students in Soweto.
On 24 August, after night study, students at Bodibeng converged in the school yard,
outside their classrooms, and started singing Ntho ena ke masaoana (This thing is
nonsense), and marched in the direction of the police station and the community hall. On
their way some began hurling stones at the police station and the community hall, and
other government buildings.115 In the hall Gibson Kente’s play Mahlomola was in full
swing. Having heard and read about the student uprisings in Soweto and elsewhere,
security personnel in Kroonstad were in no mood to tolerate any student disturbances.
They rounded up all the leaders and mildly crushed the demonstration. Nkomo remembers
that he was arrested on the very same night of the revolt at his home. He recalls that the
police came and asked: Wie loop die skool daar by Bodibeng? (Who attends school at
Bodibeng?). And that is how he was arrested. Some of the students were arrested days after
the night of the revolt. Khotso Sesele was one of those students. According to him
After those people were arrested there was a moment where people were picked up one by
one for interrogation. When I heard that I was being hunted by the police and I wanted to
save myself the embarrassment of being collected from school . . . so I decided to rather . . .
not attend some studies so that they can fetch me from home. And they definitely arrived on
that day.116
The police were not convinced that the students had organised the demonstration on their
own; rather they strongly believed that there were agitators who used the students. Nkomo
remembers that during interrogation the police would ask: ‘Truly speaking, who influenced
you to do this thing and why?’ It was not long before some of the students broke down
during interrogation and mentioned Morailane’s name. Morailane was picked up from
school and detained under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act of 1967. She was charged with
sabotage and her case was transferred to the Bloemfontein High Court. The police forcibly
turned the students into state witnesses. But this strategy backfired. In court, the students
informed Judge T.M. Steyn that the police had forced them into falsifying or distorting the
truth in their affidavits.117 This weakened the state’s case and Morailane was acquitted. She
returned to school on 1 December 1976; but because of continued police surveillance,
115. Interview with Sesele.

116. University of the Witwatersrand GP: Report of the Commission, 187; also see Weekend World, 28
November 1976.
117. Interview with Morailane; Bodibeng High School Logbook, 1 December 1976. I have a copy of this
logbook in my possession.
122 TSHEPO MOLOI
she finally heeded the advice from some of her colleagues that she must leave Kroonstad.
She finally left Bodibeng High to teach at Tseki High in Qwaqwa.118
Bodibeng High Post-1976
On 19 October 1977 the NP government banned all the BCM-aligned oganisations and
some of the newspapers. This, however, did not have the intended effect to cow some of the
students at Bodibeng High. They were now aware of the liberation struggle and their role
in it. Although, there was no formal organisational structure established at Bodibeng at
this time, some of the students continued to defy and challenge all that they perceived as
either belittling blacks or discriminating against them. In 1978 Mongezi Radebe, a Form
Five student and an active member of the Young Christian Workers (YCW), led a boycott
against the continued use of the Afrikaans textbook titled Man van blydskap by A.A.
Odendaal. Fanela Nkambula, a former student at Bodibeng, remembers that Radebe
addressed them, ‘instigating us that we should not accept this book because of the ideas
which were written in that book were showing that a black person [was] very inferior’.119
Radebe had moved to Bodibeng from Phiritona Secondary School in Heilbron, where
he was active in the Young African Christian Association (YACA) a youth league of the
Young Women Christian Association. In Maokeng he joined the YCW, which aimed to
bring hope to the young people of the working class; that life is worth living after all, that
things can change, and that the Church of Christ is with them in their struggle to get jobs
and proper wages, and proper housing, and decent level of education.120 Peace Modikoe,
the only female member of the YCW and also a student at Bodibeng, recalls that they
educated young workers about their rights at work.121 Among the campaigns the YCW
engaged in were to erect shelters at bus stops for commuters and to visit elderly people who
had no one to look after them.122 For his involvement in the YCW, Radebe was detained
twice while doing Form Five and was severely tortured.123 Modikoe was also detained in
1978.124
The late 1970s also saw a fundamental shift in the involvement of teachers in politics.
Some of the teachers at Bodibeng began to participate actively in politics. This was evident
when some of them were detained for being in possession of undesirable literature. These
were Japie Ramoji, Benjamin Zothwane, and M. Sesele. The latter was released from
detention after a month.125
118. Interview with Fanela Nkambule, 28 October 2008, Kroonstad; also see interview with Theletsane.
119. University of the Witwatersrand HP, A2675 (Folder 978) ‘EcuNews Bulletin 21/1978’ Karis-Gehart
Collection, Political documents; the YCW was established in 1923 in Belgium by Cardinal Cardijn.
120. Interview with Peace Modikoe, Dagbreek, Welkom, 25 October 2009.
121. Interview with Mongezi Radebe by Julie Frederikse (no date), see AL2460 (Box A31) Julie Frederikse
Collection, South African History Archives (hereafter SAHA).
122. Interview with Radebe; interview with Nkambule and Ramotsoela; Bodibeng High School Logbook, 2
June 1978. I have a copy of this logbook in my possession.
123. University of the Witwatersrand HP, A2675 9Folder 978) Karis-Gerhart Collection, Political documents.
124. Bodibeng High School Logbook, 2 June 1978 and 26 June 1978. I have a copy of this logbook in my
possession. Zothwane, after spending some years incarcerated on Robben Island, returned to Kroonstad to
take over as principal of Bodibeng in the 1980s and he became active in politics during this period.
However, students’ defiance and political activism were not the only results bequeathed
by the BC teachings; tensions also developed between the teachers and the students, and
this affected discipline at school and the school’s impressive educational standards.
Setiloane in his book laments the gradual deterioration of ‘the high tone of discipline
instituted over the years at Bodibeng’. He strongly believes that the students’ unbecoming
behaviour was as a result of the teachers. He cites ill discipline among the teachers ‘who
would come late to school and others come smelling of liquor’.126 The school’s logbooks
(from 1977) have entries of complaints both about teachers and students. On 13 September
1977 Mr Jumbe, a teacher, was warned for coming to school drunk; on 31 October 1977,
Mr Thekisho, also a teacher, was warned that his work was unsatisfactory; and on 4 August
1977 students in Form Three refused to be punished for having failed to buy a Sesotho
reader. On the 5 July 1978, Mr Makhanya and Mr Matube, teachers, were requested to
assist in disciplining (that is, punishing) students who had arrived late, they refused. On 19
March 1979 a number of boys were suspended for belonging to a group that stole books
from school and sold them to outsiders.127
As a result of this unbecoming behaviour by teachers and students, the school’s matric
results gradually declined from 1977. Setiloane writes that in 1977 there was a 78.9 per cent
pass in matric and in 1978, 66.7 per cent passed.128 Over the years the pass rate at
Bodibeng declined. The results worsened after the 1985 student revolts. In 2008, Bodibeng
managed to obtain 39.7 per cent pass.129
Conclusion
This paper has demonstrated the role played by the teachers and the BC philosophy in
influencing some of the students at Bodibeng High School to demonstrate in 1976. Second,
it has shown that Bodibeng High (before 1967 it was called Bantu United School)
experienced political radicalism by teachers in different phases. From the 1940s to the early
1950s teachers engaged openly in political discussions with the students, but from the mid
1950s to the beginning of the 1970s, it was a period of quiescence. In the early 1970s, there
was the revival of active engagement in politics by some of the teachers and students.
Finally, the paper has illustrated that the change in the behaviour of the students from
submissive and apolitical to defiant and political, first, radicalised some of the students;
they began seriously to question the status quo in the school and in their town, at times
challenged it; but this behavioural change also had negative impact on the excellent
educational standards instituted over the years at Bodibeng. It encouraged lack of
discipline and affected the school’s pass rate.
126. Logbooks 19771979.

128. Kroonnuus, 13 January 2009. This is a local newspaper. I have a copy in my possession.
124 TSHEPO MOLOI
Acknowledgements
The support of the Ford Foundation, with whose assistance the research for this study was
carried out, is gratefully acknowledged. I would also like to acknowledge the valuable
comments made on this paper by Professors Philip Bonner and Linda Chisholm, and Dr
Sifiso Ndlovu.
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126 TSHEPO MOLOI
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South African Historical Journal

ISSN: 0258-2473 (Print) 1726-1686 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rshj20

Bodibeng High School: Black Consciousness

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Bodibeng High School: Black Consciousness Philosophy and Students

ISSN: Print 0258-2473/Online 1726-1686

Bodibeng21 High School: Fusing Politics and Education, 1940s 1950s

collaborators, who welcomed Bantu Education.44 Mothibatsela, the principal of Bantu

44. Setiloane, The History, 109114; 166.

Bodibeng High’s Quiescent Era, 1960s to the Beginning of the 1970s

65. Interview with David Lebethe, J23 April 2008, Johannesburg.

83. A2176 HP, SASO Collection, Onkgopotsi Tiro’s speech.

89. Interview with Lebethe, 23 April 2008.

In similar vein, Tsepo Oliphant remembers,

98. Interview with Oliphant.

105. Interview with Taje.

The demonstration in August, according to my interviewees, was instigated by what

111. Interview with Nkomo, 14 April 2008, Kroonstad.

115. Interview with Sesele.

Bodibeng High Post-1976

126. Logbooks 19771979.

Bodibeng High School, 18 September 1975 Logbook.

Unpublished dissertations and theses

Weekend World, 28 November 1976.

Dhlamini, Mpopesi, Kroonstad, 16 January 2009.

Modisenyane, Lewele, Kroonstad, 9 July 2008.

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