BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY - AFRO-SOUTH AFRICAN " LENNOX MADIKANE " A BLACK HERO SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR SO CALLED SABOTAGE IN SOUTH AFRICAN - GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK HEROES "

                                                                                                                            BLACK  SOCIAL  HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Lennox Madikane
By Shamin Chibba

LennoxMadikane-text

At about 2am on 22 November 1962, 250 Poqo members, carrying axes, machetes and homemade weapons, marched from Mbekweni township on the outskirts of Paarl in Western Cape to protest against carrying passes.

Lennox Madikane was one of them; for his anti-apartheid actions he became one of the first three people to be sentenced to death for sabotage in South Africa.

Madikane was a member the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and its military wing, Poqo.

The members split into two groups, one to attack the prison and the other the police station. The latter group attacked police patrol vans before police shot at them. Three were killed and others were wounded. Several were arrested.

The rest fled, to join the group planning the prison attack. Together they formed a new group that then attacked houses in Loop Street, in Paarl. Two residents were killed.

Madikane was arrested and sentenced to death for sabotage. On 1 November 1963, he, Fezile Felix Jaxa and Mxolisi Damane were hanged.