The Quiet Passing of a June 16 Titan: Remembering Barney Mokgatle

In a quiet corner of Bapong, a different kind of giant was laid to rest. There was no national spectacle, no flood of media headlines, just the profound, respectful silence that accompanies the passing of a true pillar. Barney Mokgatle, 73, the last of the famed Soweto Uprising leadership trio, died on November 12, his departure a quiet echo of a life that once shook the foundations of a nation.

His funeral this past Sunday was a gathering of the steadfasta congregation of Black Consciousness movement stalwarts, former comrades, and those who remember the fierce, ideological fire of the 1976 generation. They came not to mourn a celebrity, but to honour a revolutionary who never stopped believing in the unfinished mission.

The Last of the Trio

Mokgatle was the final thread connecting us to a specific, legendary leadership core. Alongside the more widely named Tsietsi Mashinini and Khotso Seathlolo, he formed a triumvirate that strategically spearheaded the student protests that would irrevocably change South Africa.

As Thabo Ndabeni, a fellow 1976 stalwart, recalled, Mokgatle’s role did not end in the streets of Soweto. In exile, he was tasked with a critical international mission: leading the global campaign to raise awareness for the “Soweto 11,” the students charged with sedition and terrorism for their leadership. His commitment was further steeled when he became one of the first members of the SA Youth Revolutionary Council to undergo military training in Lebanon and Syria.

A Revolutionary Spirit, An Unfinished Book

Tributes painted a picture of a man of profound intellectual and revolutionary maturity. Landiwe Mahlangu, an economic strategist and former Black Consciousness activist, expressed his shock and sadness, reflecting on the sheer courage of high school students leading a charge that would define the struggle.

“Rooted in the philosophy of black consciousness, they were resolute in their quest for black power, unshaken in their belief of attaining an egalitarian and socialist society, fearless in their prosecution of the liberation struggle and undeterred by exile,” Mahlangu said.

But the fighter was also a scholar at heart. Before his death, Mokgatle was on the verge of completing his memoir. It was his fervent wish for this work to be serialized and taught in schoolsa direct passing of the baton to the youth, ensuring the raw truth of their struggle would not be diluted by time.

The Unfinished Work of a Lifetime

The somber reflections at his funeral were underpinned by a pressing, urgent question: what became of the mission? Mahlangu did not shy away from this, pointing to the persistent challenges facing black students todayacademic disruptions, exclusions, and a lack of fundingwhile their parents still grapple with poverty and unemployment.

He spoke of land and an economy still firmly in the hands of white capital, a situation he argued is enabled by a “captured elite” and a government seduced by neoliberalism. In this context, mourning Mokgatle is not enough.

His passing is a stark reminder. It is a call, not just to memory, but to action. To truly honour this son of the soil, Mahlangu urged, is to commit to completing the work he dedicated his life tothe relentless pursuit of the liberation he envisioned, rooted unashamedly in the philosophy of Black Consciousness. The quiet man from Bapong has spoken his last; the challenge now lies with the living.

{Source: Citizen}

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