16 Facts About James Mpanza

James Mpanza was a community leader and social activist in Johannesburg, South Africa, from the mid-1940s until the late 1960s.

James Mpanza studied until year 6 at Georgedale Primary School, before qualifying with a third-class teaching certificate at Indaleni in Natal.

James Mpanza was a clerk and interpreter at a solicitors' office when he was 18, and he was falsely convicted of fraud in 1912.

James Mpanza came to notice when he was accused of the murder in 1915 of an Indian shopkeeper called Adam.

James Mpanza appealed his own case, arguing that he was somewhere else at the time.

James Mpanza was reprieved but he still received a life sentence.

James Mpanza served 13 years in jail, being moved from place to place because he misbehaved and attacked warders.

James Mpanza would ride a horse through Orlando giving rise to an air of eccentricity.

James Mpanza held public meetings at his home in Orlando, which is commemorated as James Mpanza House.

James Mpanza operated informal courts at his Orlando home where family disputes could be settled.

The squatters had left the slums of Orlando but their plight was still not certain and James Mpanza got the nickname of "Sofasonke" as he added his opinion of their outlook if they had no help.

James Mpanza successfully appealed against a government deportation order that would have exiled him in Natal.

James Mpanza later helped to set up the Soweto Urban Banto Council in the 1960s, which reduced his importance.

James Mpanza was interested in horse racing and owned his own racehorses in the Orange Free State and in the Transvaal, but because of the laws at the time he had to hire white jockeys to race them.

James Mpanza died in 1970 at his home in Orlando East and he was given a large civic funeral and buried in Jabulani, Soweto Doornkop cemetery.

The "traditional courts" or makgotla that operated informally in Soweto are thought to have come from the "parents' courts" that James Mpanza operated at his own house.