Jeff Masemola was born on 112 December 931 and was a member of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC).Jeff Masemola was also known as The Tiger of Azania and Bra Jeff, was a South African anti-apartheid activist, teacher, and founder of the armed wing of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and former member of the ANCYL. He is the only person to spend 27 years in South African prison [Robben Island] during the apartheid era in South Africa, and was released in October 1989, shortly before the legalization of the PAC and the African National Congress by F. W. de Klerk. He served the longest sentence of any political prisoner in Robben Island prison in South Africa.
Masemola was a teacher in Atteridgeville township in Pretoria in the 1950s.
Together with Robert Sobukwe, Masemola co-founded PAC in 1959 in Soweto. Subsequently, he worked for PAC’s youth organization in Atteridgeville and then headed PAC’s military wing, Poqo.
The PAC was formed in 1959 by a group of people who had broken away from the African National Congress (ANC) the year before. At that time, members of the PAC opposed ANC’s collaboration with other organizations in the Congress Alliance, and did not support the “non-racial” orientation embodied in ANC’s Freedom Charter. The PAC was more nationalistic, and felt that Africans could best negotiate with other groups only if they organize among themselves first, and built up a position of strength. One of the major protests organized by the PAC was the Sharpeville anti-pass demonstration in 1960. On March 21, 1960 the South African police killed 69 people who were taking part in a peaceful demonstration, arrested 20,000 and detained a further 2,000 without trial. On March 21, 1985, the 25th anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre, the South African police killed 19 people in Uitenhage who were taking part in a funeral procession.
In 1962 Masemola was arrested and convicted on the charge of smuggling individuals out of the country for military training and blowing up power lines. He was imprisoned at Robben Island.
Jeff Masemola was charged with 14 others in the Pretoria Supreme Court in June 1963 with conspiracy to commit sabotage. It was alleged that at a meeting in Atteridgeville, near Pretoria, plans were made to attack whites, and that the accused were acting under the influence of Potlako Leballo of the PAC. Masemola was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment which he is serving on Robben Island. Since 1968, he has been kept continuously in solitary confinement in the segregated cells, away from the other prisoners.
He was released from the prison on 15 October 1989 together with ANC members Ahmed Kathrada, Raymond Mhlaba, Wilton Mkwayi, Andrew Mlangeni, Oscar Mpetha, Elias Motsoaledi and Walter Sisulu.
Masemola was killed in a car accident shortly after his release in 1990.
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