Tom Manthata

Thomas Madikwe Manthata (29 November 1939 – 10 July 2020) was a South African activist who was active in the anti-apartheid movement. After the end of apartheid, he served as a member both of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and of the South African Human Rights Commission.

During apartheid, Manthata was a teacher in Soweto and worked for the South African Council of Churches. A stalwart of the Black Consciousness movement, he was a founding member and one-time general secretary of the Azanian People's Organisation. He was one of the defendants in the Delmas Treason Trial and in November 1988 was convicted of treason for his political activity. He served one year of a six-year sentence before the verdict was overturned on appeal in 1989.

Early life and activism Manthata was born on 29 November 1939 in Soekmekaar in the former Northern Transvaal. In 1967, after being expelled from a Catholic seminary, he began teaching at Sekano Ntoane High School in Soweto outside Johannesburg, where his students included Amos Masondo and future president Cyril Ramaphosa. During the same period, he also studied part-time at the University of South Africa (UNISA) and became active in the burgeoning Black Consciousness movement, initially through the South African Students' Organisation. Desmond Tutu, then the general secretary of the SACC, later said that Manthata had only been in the Vaal to monitor the protests on his orders. Nonetheless, on 18 November 1988, Manthata – with Moss Chikane, Popo Molefe, and Mosiuoa Lekota of the United Democratic Front – was among the four defendants convicted of treason. Tutu published an op-ed in Manthata's defence in the New York Times, writing: If there is one person in South Africa for whom I would unhesitatingly put my head on a block, it is Tom Manthata. Tom is a person who, after being tortured while in police custody, after spending more than 200 days detained without trial, after being in 'preventive detention' for nearly a year, came out of prison to say to his friends in the council: 'Let's not be consumed by bitterness.' However, he served only one year: on 15 December 1989, the sentence was overturned by the Supreme Court of Appeal on a technicality.

Post-apartheid career After the abolition of apartheid in 1994, Manthata served as a commissioner in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. he began a seven-year term as a national commissioner in October 2002, under chairperson Jody Kollapen.

Personal life and death Manthata died of COVID-19-related illness at One Military Hospital outside Pretoria on 10 July 2020.