Media Statements

“Laduma libalele – The thunder has returned home.”

The African National Congress joins the people of South Africa, the liberation movement, and progressive forces across the continent in solemn reflection as we mark the reburial and funeral service of two of our most distinguished revolutionaries — Advocate Philemon Pearce Dumasile Nokwe and Mama Vuyiswa ‘Tiny’ Nokwe.

Today, Saturday 17 May 2025, we accompany these two giants of the struggle to their final resting place, following a dignified funeral service at Walter Sisulu Hall in Randburg, and reburial at Westpark Cemetery in Johannesburg.

We lay to rest not only two lifelong revolutionaries, but a shared memory of resistance, sacrifice and service.

Their story is one of extraordinary devotion to the ideals of our movement. From Orlando West to Dube, from Lusaka to Cape Town, and now to Westpark, their journey in life and struggle followed the contours of our national path to liberation. They lived humbly, served quietly, and left an indelible mark on the soul of our people.

Advocate Duma Nokwe —“Duma”, the thunder on a cloudless day — was the very embodiment of the high calibre of leadership that defined a critical era in the liberation struggle. The first African to be admitted to the Supreme Court of the Transvaal, he was not only a legal pioneer but an intellectual giant, an ANC Youth League National Secretary, and later the youngest Secretary General of the ANC in history.

His brilliance was never paraded, and his leadership was never about acclaim. Duma Nokwe was grounded in the principle that the value of any idea — no matter how sophisticated — lies in whether it resonates with, and advances, the cause of the masses. He believed that the final arbiter of truth was not the individual, but the people.

A teacher, organiser, and strategist, he stood in the tradition of Anton Lembede and Oliver Tambo, yet carved his own profound legacy — as a disciplined cadre, a legal tactician, and a revolutionary Pan-Africanist. In exile, as the ANC’s Director of International Affairs, Nokwe carried the message of our people to the world, strengthening alliances, confronting imperialism, and building the moral force that would eventually defeat apartheid.

Mama Vuyiswa ‘Tiny’ Nokwe, a Fort Hare graduate and activist in her own right, walked every step of that journey beside him. She was a fearless woman who led from the front and the home — from organising student protests at Fort Hare against sexist curfews, to raising her children in exile, to joining the ranks of the ANC Women’s League in demonstrations and underground activism.

She was a woman of intellect, humour, and resolve — proof that the struggle for liberation was also borne on the shoulders of countless women who never asked for applause but delivered a generation to freedom.Together, the Nokwes gave us more than speeches or slogans. They gave us living lessons in integrity, service, and sacrifice. They showed that revolutionary morality is not optional — it is foundational. They reminded us that intellectual rigour and working-class humility are not mutually exclusive — but mutually necessary.

Today, as the ANC undergoes a deep process of renewal and organisational revival, we draw from their legacy with both humility and purpose. Through political education, the new membership system, and the recommitment to ethical, people-centred leadership, we are working to once again become the movement that produced leaders of their calibre — leaders who ask not what they can gain, but how they can serve.

In their final journey home, we are reminded of the words spoken by Zimbabwean liberation hero Joshua Nkomo, as he stood over Duma Nokwe’s grave in Lusaka in 1978: “Laduma libalele – the sky thundered though there was no cloud in sight.”

Today, we understand those words even more deeply. That thunder was not only for the passing of a comrade —it was for the unfinished work of his life. It was the call to us, his successors, to measure ourselves against the standard he set, to recommit to the mission he lived for, and to renew the ANC in his image.

We thank the Nokwe family for sharing their parents with the nation. Their journey now continues through each of us.

Let the thunder echo in our consciousness, our conduct, and our commitment.

May Duma and Tiny Nokwe rest in revolutionary peace.

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