De Waal Drive name change recommended
Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille and the late Philip Kgosana. Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille and the late Philip Kgosana.
De Waal Drive could soon be called Philip Kgosana Drive, if a proposal by the City of Cape Town’s Naming and Nomination Committee is approved.
The Committee has recommended to Mayor Patricia de Lille that the City start a public participation process about the renaming of the road leading from Devil’s Peak into the city.
The proposal was done in honour of Kgosana - a struggle leader and former regional secretary of the Pan African Congress in the Western Cape.
The City says in a statement: “The proposal from Tony Heard, a former editor of the Cape Times, to rename De Waal Drive after Philip Kgosana was considered by the City’s Naming and Nomination Committee.
“The committee subsequently recommended to Executive Mayor Patricia de Lille that the City undertakes a public participation process for comments from interested and affected parties.”
Kgosana, who passed away on 17 April, led a PAC march of approximately 30 000 protesters from Langa and Nyanga along De Waal Drive on 30 March 1960, following the Sharpeville massacre.
For his efforts, Kgosana, then 23, was arrested and held in solitary confinement for 21 days in Roeland Street jail. He was charged with incitement to public violence, breaking the pass laws and marching without the apartheid government’s permission.
He went into exile after his release, and studied in Ethiopia and Uganda. He also worked for the United Nations for 22 years.