David Bopape

David Wilcox Hlahane Bopape was born in 1915 at Houtbosdorp on a farm approximately 25 kilometres from Pietersburg (now Polokwane) in the northern Transvaal. His parents were Pedi-speaking farm workers, Levi and Jerita Bopape. In 1916, his father fought against Germany in the First World War. Bopape finished his secondary education at the Botshabelo Training Institution in Middleburg, Transvaal. 

In 1936, he began a nine-year career in education. He enrolled at this same institute for a Teacher’s diploma which he completed three years later. He then taught English, Physical Science and Agriculture for one year in Chief Letswalo’s district in Tzaneen.

In 1940, he moved to Tsakane location in Brakpan where he secured a teaching post at the Berlin School. He also became a member of the Transvaal African Teachers Association that enlisted most teachers in the area. Bopape became the secretary of the Teacher’s Salary Campaign for the years 1940 and 1941.

Moving left in his politics, Bopape joined the CPSA in 1940 under General Secretary Moses Kotane and, finding no contradiction between communism and his faith, he remained a Christian. In the late 1940s, he also served on the editorial staff of Inkululeko, a CPSA newspaper. The CPSA called on members to belong to national organisations, arguing that they were the ones fighting for liberation. In 1942 he joined the ANC under President Dr. AB Xuma and was tasked as secretary of the Anti-Pass campaign of 1943-44. Bopape was also a central figure in the Alexander bus boycott of 1943-1944, when thousands walked eighteen miles to and from work rather that submit to an increase in bus fares from 4d to 5d. 

Bopape’s teaching career ended when he rejected the municipality’s criminalising of traditional beer brewing in the township, and their creation of beer-halls. This was designed to generate revenue for the White’s-only council. Bopape was elected to represent the Brakpan community on matters such as the housing shortage and the removal of White managers of municipal township beer-halls. From 1943, Dr. A Language was the township’s manager for Native Affairs. A Stellenbosch University graduate, he had been an activist of the right wing organisation, Ossewa Brandwag appointed ostensibly for his ‘expert knowledge of natives’. When Bopape publicly contradicted Dr. Language, the latter corresponded with the Department of Education. Bopape was summoned to the Department’s offices and instructed to resign from the Communist Party and the ANC, or face expulsion. Bopape’s response was that as a representative of the people, he was responsible to them, and that the nation was more important than him as an individual. 

His expulsion sparked protest action by teachers, school children and parents. On August 10, 1944, some 7,000 residents participated in a stay-away, chanting ‘No Bopape, No Schooling’. In addition to the reinstatement of Bopape, they demanded the removal of Dr. Language as township manager. The protest action finally came to an end when the Town Council promised Bopape’s reinstatement and to hold an inquiry into Dr. Language’s conduct. Neither the inquiry nor the reinstatement occurred however. 

In 1944, Bopape was elected Transvaal ANC Secretary. In the same year, Bopape helped found the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) and served in its first National Executive Committee with Anton Lembede, Oliver Tambo, A.P. Mda, Godfrey Pitje, Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela. The founding meeting was held at the Bantu Men’s Social Centre in Eloff Street, Johannesburg, and was attended by a selected group of 150 men. In his new occupation, Bopape organized ANC branches in virtually every town in the Transvaal (today, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, North West and Gauteng provinces). 

Bopape was an organiser of the 1948 Votes for All Convention, and in March 1950 he participated in the Defend Free Speech Convention as a joint secretary. This campaign attracted 10,000 men to Marshall Square in Johannesburg, and called for a one-day general strike on May Day (1st of May). This was an effort to call on the government to abolish the Pass Law and all discriminatory laws. On that day, 18 Africans died and many were wounded in unprovoked attacks by the police. After Dr. H.F. Verwoerd introduced Bantu Education, Bopape, together with Bernard Molewa, became instrumental in organising ANC ‘Cultural Clubs’. These were meant to counter inferior state education of African children and to teach them to love their people and country.

Bopape held the position of Provincial Secretary until a banning order forced him to resign. At the time of the Defiance, Bopape was banned along with Yusuf Dadoo, Moses Kotane and J.B. Marks and again ordered by the apartheid government to resign from the ANC and CPSA. But his experience as an organiser and leader of mass action made him an asset to the movement. Undeterred, the four rejected their banning orders and addressed mass meetings calling on others to defy their banning orders. 

In 1953 Bopape was arrested and imprisoned for four months at the Johannesburg Prison. Whilst in prison, he was served with a lifetime banning order under the Suppression of Communism Act. Although banned, Bopape continued with political work, secretly helping to organise the Defiance Campaign. As the ANC prepared for the Congress of the People, which adopted the Freedom Charter, he travelled to Cape Town to mobilise people to attend the meeting. He held a meeting on top of Table Mountain and succeeded in organising 100 people to attend the Congress. He then went to Knysna, Port Elizabeth, East London, Umtata, Tsolo and Qumbu.

At this time, he was arrested for entering the Transkei illegally and was sentenced to 24 days hard labour. After returning to Johannesburg, he continued to defy the orders by attending the Congress of the People at Kliptown. Bopape was arrested again following the declaration of the State of Emergency after the Sharpeville shootings. Although the leadership of the ANC and SACP went to exile, he opted not to follow suit.

Instead he continued with his underground activities, stating that ‘when in exile you are only safe from police harassment and imprisonment, possibly death also, or, safe from possible enemy attack. But one cannot organise membership from there or organise in fear of death; Remember the highest sacrifice to the struggle is death. Secondly, there is no suffering in exile. The leadership would organise food and other necessities for the camps. At home you suffer’. Bopape died on 2 September 2004 in Brakpan, Gauteng.