Lillian Ngoyi, well-known anti-Apartheid activist, dies

Anti-Apartheid activist and founder member of the African National Congress Women’s League (ANCWL), Lilian Ngoyi died on 13 March 1980. She was 68 years old.   Living as a restricted person at the time, she developed a heart condition and died. Born in Pretoria in 1911, Ngoyi worked as a nurse before she became an activist. She joined the African National Congress (ANC) and eventually helped found the party’s women wing, ANCWL.  In 1956, Ngoyi led a march against pass laws for women to the Union Buildings and personally knocked on Prime Minister J.G Strijdom’s door to hand over the petitions. In 2012, a Pretoria street was named in her honour.