The Order of Luthuli in Silver

Mary Thipe (Posthumous) Awarded for:

Her excellent contribution to the liberation struggle and the fight for social justice. Her bravery and bold stance against the brutality of the security branch remains legendary in the Chesterville area.

Profile of Ms Mary Thipe

Ms Mary Thipe was born in 1917 in a village called Ramhlakoane in the Matatiele district. She later moved to Umkhumbane and joined the liberation struggle in 1952. She was arrested, detained and banned for five years for her political activities. Thipe joined the African National Congress (ANC) and became vice-chairperson of the ANC Women’s League (ANCWL).

She was involved in the Cato Manor Beer Hall March in 1960 where women chased men who were drinking sorghum beer while their children and wives starved. Thipe did not only fight against the engineered social decay of black families, she also directed her fight to the unjust laws and cruelty meted against those arrested by the oppressive system.

Thipe took part in the campaign that called for a boycott on potatoes after security police forced black prisoners to work on potato farms in Bethal in Mpumalanga. Her activities attracted the wrath of police.

She was put under house arrest for 10 years which meant she could not attend church services, funeral services of her loved ones and was not allowed to be in the company of more than three people.
 
Every Monday morning, Thipe was required to report at the Cato Manor police station. This did not stop the security branch from harassing her even in her house arrest.

She had trained her children that each time police came in the middle of the night, they would wake up and stand behind her. She had also trained them to look at the police in the eye and not flinch. When one of her grandsons went into exile, the police intensified their terror on Thipe and her family.

When the police threatened to find her grandson and kill him, she retorted by requesting that they bring his head back to her. She refused to show fear and flinch at their threats. Even in the house arrest Thipe found ways to continue her work with the ANCWL, organising funerals of fallen comrades.

In 1986 the police used a gang which was known as the A-team to burn Thipe’s house down. Thipe died of a stroke but not before voting for what would be her first and last time in 1994. A road in Durban is named after Thipe in honour of her work in the Chesterville and Ntuzuma townships of Durban.