19 Facts About Curnick Ndlovu

Muzivukile Curnick Ndlovu, spelled Muzuvukile, was a South African politician, anti-apartheid activist, and trade unionist.

Curnick Ndlovu was a former national chairperson of the United Democratic Front, a former secretary of the Railway and Harbour Workers' Union, and a former regional commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe in Natal Province.

Curnick Ndlovu was an early recruit to MK and served as head of its inaugural regional command in Natal from 1961 to 1963.

Curnick Ndlovu was born in Matatiele in the Transkei on 27 July 1932.

Curnick Ndlovu was one of two sons born to Josiah Ndlovu, a railway worker, and Amelia Ndlovu.

Curnick Ndlovu grew up with his maternal grandparents in Matatiele, where he attended primary school before enrolling for his junior certificate at the Polela Institute in Bulwer in the former Natal Province.

In 1950, Curnick Ndlovu sought to join his parents in Durban, but he had difficulty obtaining a permit to live in the area as required by apartheid-era legislation.

Curnick Ndlovu worked at a glass factory in Dundee until 1953, when he was granted a permit to live with his family in Cato Manor in Durban.

Late the following year, Curnick Ndlovu was hospitalised with tuberculosis, and he remained in hospital throughout the 1960 Sharpeville massacre and subsequent political crackdown and state of emergency.

When Billy Nair was banned in 1962, Curnick Ndlovu took over as regional secretary of the South African Congress of Trade Unions in Natal, and the following year he joined SACTU's national executive committee.

Decades later, at the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2000, Curnick Ndlovu applied for and was granted amnesty for his involvement in two incidents of sabotage, near Durban in 1961 and 1963 respectively.

In March 1964, Curnick Ndlovu was transferred from Pretoria's Leeuwkop Prison to Robben Island, where he served eighteen years of his sentence.

Curnick Ndlovu was the regional organiser for Natal during the UDF's flagship Million Signatures campaign, a petitioning campaign against the Tricameral Parliament and related constitutional reform.

Curnick Ndlovu was detained later in 1985 and went into hiding to evade arrest during the state of emergency imposed the following year.

In South Africa's first post-apartheid general election in April 1994, Curnick Ndlovu was elected to represent the ANC in the National Assembly of the first democratic Parliament.

Curnick Ndlovu was a member of Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Labour.

Curnick Ndlovu served a single five-year term in his seat: although he was listed as an ANC candidate in the 1999 general election, he retired after the election due to ill health.

Curnick Ndlovu was married to Beauty Rose Curnick Ndlovu, with whom he had one child, a daughter named Zethu.

Curnick Ndlovu died from cancer at the Highway Hospice in Sherwood, Durban, on 22 May 2002.