Josie Palmer

Josie Mpama (21 March 1903 – 3 December 1979), born Josephine Palmer, was a South African anti-apartheid and labor activist.

A forceful campaigner against racial segregation and for labor and women's rights, she is considered the first black woman to play a major role in the Communist Party of South Africa.

Early life Josephine Palmer was born in 1903 in Potchefstroom in what was then known as the Transvaal Colony, now the North West Province of South Africa.

Her parents were Georgina Garson and Stephen Bonny Mpama, a government interpreter.

She was known for a portion of her life as Josie Palmer, using the Anglicized version of her father's Zulu last name. She began using the name Mpama later, on moving to a black township, but used both names throughout her life, depending in part on where she was living. Mpama was also involved in the 1929 Beer Hall Riots.

In the early years of her political work, she did laundry for white families to make ends meet.

She and her husband were forced to leave Potchefstroom in 1931, and they moved to Johannesburg.

In 1935, she traveled to Moscow to attend the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International and study at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East.

Mpama's work also included the fight for women's rights. In 1947, she helped found the Transvaal All Women’s Union, becoming the organization's first secretary. She then helped found the Federation of South African Women in 1954, eventually leading its Transvaal branch. She later had a son, Dennis, possibly the product of an affair with Moses Kotane.

She is represented with a sculpture at the National Heritage Monument in the Groenkloof Nature Reserve.