12 Facts About Sonia Bunting

Sonia Bunting, OLS was a South African journalist, and a political and anti-apartheid activist.

Sonia Bunting was posthumously honored by the government of South Africa with the Order of Luthuli in Silver in 2010.

Sonia Bunting's parents were Jewish exiles, who had fled from Eastern Europe to escape anti-Semitic pogroms.

Sonia Bunting began campaigning for universal suffrage and subsequently terminated her medical studies after completing one year of schooling.

Sonia Bunting continued working for the SACP there, and began working at the Cape Town Peace Council as its secretary.

In 1953, the party reorganized under the name of the South African Communist Party, and Sonia Bunting was one of its founding members.

Sonia Bunting was invited as one of the platform speakers at the 1955 Congress of the People held in Kliptown, where the Freedom Charter was adopted.

The trial lasted until 29 March 1961, but Sonia Bunting was acquitted along with 91 others and returned to her home and children in October 1958.

In March 1960 when the Sharpeville massacre occurred, Sonia Bunting was arrested again and held in the Pretoria Central Prison for more than three months.

Sonia Bunting mobilized efforts to place economic sanctions on South Africa and isolate the country from the world economy, as well as headed up the efforts to publicize the situation in South Africa and the plight of Mandela and other political prisoners.

Sonia Bunting has been widely credited and is most remembered for her role in organizing the campaign to save Mandela from the gallows when the Rivonia Trial took place.

Sonia Bunting served for the ANC in the campaigns of the 1994 and 1999 elections and was one of the founders of the Cape Town Friends of Cuba, continuing her political activities until her death.