1. Nnoseng Ellen Kate Kuzwayo was a South African women's rights activist and politician, who was a teacher from 1938 to 1952.
11 Facts About Ellen Kuzwayo
1. 2.
Ellen Kuzwayo was president of the African National Congress Youth League in the 1960s.
3.
Ellen Kuzwayo's autobiography, Call Me Woman, won the CNA Literary Award.
4.
Ellen Kuzwayo attended Adams College, Amanzimtoti, and then undertook a teacher training course at Lovedale College in Fort Hare, graduating at the age of 22 and beginning a teaching career.
5.
Ellen Kuzwayo married Ernest Moloto when in her late twenties, and the couple had two sons, but the marriage was not a happy one, and after suffering abuse from her husband she fled to Johannesburg.
6.
Ellen Kuzwayo had a part as a shebeen queen, alongside Sidney Poitier in the 1951 film Cry, the Beloved Country.
7.
Ellen Kuzwayo worked as a teacher in the Transvaal until 1952, giving up teaching on the introduction of the Bantu Education Act, 1953, which cut back opportunities for black education.
8.
Ellen Kuzwayo died in Johannesburg, aged 91, of complications from diabetes, survived by her sons, Bobo and Justice Moloto, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
9.
In 1979, Ellen Kuzwayo was named Woman of the Year by the Johannesburg newspaper The Star, and was nominated again in 1984.
10.
Ellen Kuzwayo awarded honorary doctorates by the University of Natal and the University of Port Elizabeth.
11.
Ellen Kuzwayo was awarded the Order of Meritorious Service by Nelson Mandela in 1999.