ABSTRACT
Ellen Kuzwayo, the only daughter of Phillip Serasengwe and Emma Mutsi Merafe, was born on June 29, 1914, and grew up on a large family farm, Tshiamelo (Place of goodness), which she inherited in 1930. In 1974 the farm was declared a white area and taken from her by the South African government. This and many other acts of racist violence and violation she and her family experienced prompted Kuzwayo to commit her life to resisting racial discrimination. Simultaneously, however, and in the spirit of what such scholars as Nigerian Chikwenya Okonjo Ogunyemi and African-American Alice Walker have termed womanism, Ellen Kuzwayo has fought against the second-class status of African women living under apartheid. (When applying for her first passport, Kuzwayo was forced to get the permission of her eldest son, himself a minor.)
