Remembering the fallen liberation stalwart

In three months’ time, the Freedom Charter will turn 70. The nation is also marking the 65th anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre that dimmed hope. Cosatu’s birth in 1985, amid a brutal State of Emergency, rekindled hope. For John Maroo, 1975 marked the return to the underground struggle. In 2025, his centennial, Maroo’s quest for human rights is underscored by a reburial – this time in the land that he lived, fought and died for.

Born in 1925 in Parys, hemming Lekoa John Pogiso Maroo was the second of five children of Mme Selina and Ntate Simon Maroo. The white minority-led Union of South Africa, which codified the colour bar, had been established 15 years earlier. The African National Congress (ANC), Maroo’s political home, had been founded in 1912. A year later, the devastating Natives’ Land Act legislated grimmer prospects for Africans. It overnight reduced them to “squatters”, as Sol Plaatje wrote. “The section of the law debarring Natives from hiring land is particularly harsh,” he asserted, adding that its heart it was “intended to reduce Natives to serfs.”