Meet the people our streets are being named after

The metro has confirmed that the signing, printing and installation process for the municipal road name changes had begun on September 15.

This was after the metro had processed the name changes in May.

According to metro spokesperson Zweli Dlamini, while the municipal roads have been changed, the metro is awaiting the approval of the minister of Arts and Culture for the change of the three provincial roads in Benoni.

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Below are the municipal and provincial roads that have changed and the person behind the name:

Putfontein Road (N12) – Cleoupas Nsibanda
Cleopas Nsibande was born into a family of seven on March 25, 1928, in Nyibe Location near Ermelo in Mpumalanga.

After school, he started working at Amato Textiles mills in the early 1950s, where he got involved in the trade union. He was one of the key campaigners who mobilised people for the adoption of the Freedom Charter in 1955.

For this contribution, he was arrested and charged in the historical 1956 Treason Trial with 155 leaders, including former ANC presidents Chief Albert Luthuli, Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo.

In 1973 he was detained while in Swaziland and later deported to South Africa. Nsibande died on December 26, 2008, at the age of 80 at Life The Glynnwood Hospital in Benoni and was buried at Tamboville Cemetery in Wattville.

Snake Road (N12) – Mary Moodley
Mary Moodley, or Aunty Mary as she was known, was born in 1913. She lived in the township of Wattville, Benoni in Gauteng. Moodley, a garment worker, was an organiser for the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU).

She was also an organiser of the Food and Canning Workers’ Union.

Moodley was detained during the 1960 State of Emergency.

She was first banned in 1963 under the Suppression of Communism Act. In 1964, she was arrested and charged with helping fugitives to escape South Africa and given a suspended sentence. On October 23, 1979, at the age of 66, Mary Moodley died.

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Etwatwa (N12) – Oscar Mabika
Oscar Hushai Mabika was born on September 29, 1923, in Ingwavuma.

In the 1940s, he joined the ANC at the time of Azikhwela. In 1955 he was part of the group that went to Kliptown for the Freedom Charter formation.

He relocated to Benoni in 1958 and worked underground with Alfred Nzo, who was in exile. He was strongly involved in the 1976 Uprising. He was the treasurer of the Daveyton branch from 1990 to 1995.

He served the community of Daveyton and greater Benoni in various capacities, including policing and community development forums. He successfully brokered peace between residents of Chris Hani informal settlement and the then belligerent ANCYL.

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Daveyton (Kingsway Road) (N12) – Richard Mhlongo
Richard Mhlongo was born on April 29, 1971. He joined the struggle for liberation in 1984 during the age limit uprising led by COSAS. Mhlongo led East Rand Student Congress, Eraso and Dasco.

He was part of the MKMVA underground machinery and similarly involved in the establishment of Daveyton Civic Organisation, which included the civic organisation’s membership recruitment and shop steward meetings for both Numsa and SARHWU.

Mhlongo disappeared and when he was eventually found, he was burnt to death with his friend, Clarence Lukhele, while in Standard 10 at Mabuya High School on December 19, 1989.

Tom Jones Road (N12) – Amina Cachalia
Amina Cachalia began campaigning against apartheid and racial discrimination as a teenager.

She became a women’s rights activist, often focusing on economic issues, such as financial independence for women. She spent 15 years under house arrest throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

She was the treasurer of the Federation of South African Women, a leading supporter of the Federation of Transvaal Women and a member of the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress and Transvaal Indian Congress during the apartheid era.

She was elected to the National Assembly of South Africa in the 1994 South African general election, the country’s first with universal adult suffrage. In 2004, she was awarded the Order of Luthuli in Bronze for her contributions to gender and racial equality and democracy.

Cachalia died at Milpark Hospital in Parktown West, Johannesburg, on January 31, 2013, aged 82.