She thought it was of no importance. But when asked again Nomvo Booi told us: eleven times she had been in South African prisons, she had been subjected to torture and had spent nearly one year in solitary confinement.

At a very young age she had become active in the liberation struggle, first in the ANC1, later in the PAC2 of which she was one of the founding members and became a member of the Central Committee. She belonged to the first female cadres of APLA/POQO3 and was, among other things, regional secretary of the underground PAC in the Transkei.

During the celebration of the International Women’s Day on 8 March 1983 in London Nomvo Booi passionately pleaded for a borderless one Africa. Both an activist and unassuming woman who died in 2016 at the age of 87.

In London, 1983, Irene Scheltes (Azania Komitee) had an interview with Nomvo Booi4.

Nomvo, can you tell us about your political activities? How did it start and how have things worked out?

‘At a very early age I became a member of the ANC. I was involved in the successful ‘Defiance Campaign’5 in 1952. What a great massive power emerged there! At the time I was a member of the ANC Youth League. They believed that the ANC leadership had stopped the campaign too soon and too easily. This Youth League formed the basis for the PAC, formed in 1959. I was deeply involved in its formation and I became a regional secretary of the PAC. During the Positive Action Campaign of 1960, which culminated in the Sharpeville Massacre6, I lived in Queenstown. There I was arrested at a PAC demonstration against the Pass Laws. I was sent to prison for four months. Straight afterwards I went underground, working for POQO. Back then I was one of the few female cadres in POQO.’

‘After my imprisonment I could not get a job in Queenstown, and therefore lost the right to live there. In 1961 I found myself in the Transkei. There too I continued working underground for POQO. In August 1962 I was arrested again, accused of PAC activities. I was initially imprisoned for 90 days without due process, without my family being informed, without extra clothing, without anything to read. The 90 days were extended to 270 days and then to eleven months. All that time I was in solitary confinement and was constantly beaten.’

Do you have any family in Azania?

‘My eldest daughter (25 years old) is in Azania. I have no idea where she is or what has happened to her. She is also active in politics. My two other children (13 and 15 years old) followed me to Lesotho without any outside help. They still live there.’

Stella Moabi8,  who is also present during this interview, asks how many times she has been in prison. Nomvo replies it is not just her and that it actually does not really matter, but in the end she is persuaded to answer. What follows is a heartbreaking enumeration:

1. Queenstown
2. East London
3. Engcobo (in solitary confinement and her neck was nearly broken)
4. Umtata
5. Muanduli (in solitary confinement)
6. Idutywa (in solitary confinement)
7. Engcobo
8. Kroonstad
9. Pretoria Central Prison
10. Nylström (Transvaal
11. Umtata

How have you been after 1968?

‘After my banning I left the Transkei in  late 1968. People from a church asked me to help women who had just been deported to, basically dumped in, the Ciskei. The church had acquired three sewing machines for the women. They asked me to organize a sewing class for them. It was a Roman Catholic church, led by white people and 

attended by black people. They did a good job. I worked with the women, and successfully so, till a crisis arose at the University of Fort Hare. Clergymen were banned charged with alleged subversive activities. The church could no longer support the group and had to discontinue the activities. Then I started to set up another group with other women. I taught them how to sew so they could earn their own living. Needless to say all this had to be carried out in absolute secrecy. It involved many sacrifices and I received very little money.’

It must have been incredibly difficult for you to work with these women in those circumstances. Especially to organize them politically. Or did you find a way to overcome these obstacles?

‘Absolutely! Look, the position of these women was of course not easy: they had to live alone with their children, their husbands were working far from home in the mines. They were completely on their own: working the fields, domestic chores, raising their children. They were not in a position to earn a living with a profession. Teaching them to sew was essentially working towards the first political objective of the PAC: help people to help themselves! Of course I did not actively talk about the fact I was a PAC member. When you work covertly, it is hard to know who to trust. But look at this.’ Nomvo gets out of a trunk some pieces of cloth and dresses with printed figures in black, yellow or green: the PAC colors. Figures that represent a borderless Africa (Pan-Africanism) and, if you look closely, with the image of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, the founder of the PAC. Nomvo: ‘In this way I did political work in my sewing classes. And so I also managed to outsmart the ongoing police checks.’