Robert Mangaliso was the founder of the Pan African Congress (PAC). He was born in 1924 in Graaff-Reinet.

He was the seventh child of a local Xhosa family. He won a scholarship to Healdtown, a Methodist boarding school near Fort Beaufort.

He graduated from the University of Fort Hare in 1947. Here he had joined the African National Congress Youth League.

In 1954 the University of the Witwatersrand hired him as a language instructor. In later years he was qualified as a lawyer.

He became a charismatic member of the Africanist wing of the ANC. However he questioned the ANC's strategy of co-operating with whites and formed the breakaway PAC in 1959.

In 1960 he launched the nationwide anti-pass protests, which ended in the Sharpeville massacre. He was imprisoned and served on Robben Island for nine years. He was released from Robben Island in 1969 and confined to the Kimberley municipality area.

He died on 25 February 1978. He was buried in Graaff-Reinet and over 5,000 people attended his funeral.

Information obtrained from the Lantern July 1986 and Rough Guides Ltd











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