Mankekolo Mahlangu-Ngcobo

Rev. Dr. Mankekolo Mahlangu-Ngcobo was born in April 21, 1949 in Polokwane old Location in South Africa. She was raised by her mother, Naome Malope Mahlangu and her aunts. Her aunt, Mabothe Pooe brought her to Soweto were she spent most of her teenage years until she went into exile. At the age of 21, Rev. Dr. Mankekolo went into nurses’ training at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, Johannesburg. She immediately became concerned about the way black patients were treated by white doctors, and questioned why all of the Nursing Matrons or Directors were white. She resented white people. She also began to feel a conflict in her heart about Christianity, seeing it as a religion that oppressed Black people took their land. But, on August, 21 1970, Rev. Dr. Mankekolo received Jesus Christ as her personal savior after it was revealed to her that Jesus Christ was a savior for all people. She learned that we are all made in God’s image and that Christ died for all of us, black, white, Indians and colored. That inspired her as a black woman to change Apartheid. While working as a nurse in Baragwanath, every Christmas Eve, the Hospital Christian Fellowship was charged with planning the nativity play and carol singing for the patients. Using her Christian experience, she wanted the nativity play to have a practical spiritual meaning to those who lived under Apartheid. She wanted to help others experience the birth of Christ in our hearts and our environment. The question was "If Jesus was to be born in South Africa, where would the stable be?" Would the stable be in a white suburb or a Black township like Soweto? She took the script to the Chief Matron who was white to endorse it. But instead, she was called to her office to discuss the nativity play script. She wanted her to cancel the introduction and the conclusion as it was ‘communist’. She respectfully told her that they prayed about it and that was their revelation, and they would not remove any part from the script. White chief matron told her that there would not be a nativity play. Which they did not have the play that year. That decision inspired the patients and staff to support anti-Apartheid activities. When she applied for a nursing scholarship to the University. At the interview, she discovered there was a confidential report stating that she was a communist. They asked her if she was a communist, she asked them to define and explain what a communist is. They did not define and explain it to her, but still let her go. They offered her scholarship to University of the North. While at the university of the North she joined the Student Christian Movement (SCM). She believed that Christianity should relate to our daily lives so Liberation Theology and Black theology were guiding her faith. She was elected secretary of the Student Representative Council. In June, 1976, the students in Soweto protested against the Afrikaans language being used as a medium of instruction. Their protest was met with bullets. The first youth to be killed was twelve-year-old Hector Peterson. She organized students at the University to be in solidarity with the students in Soweto. They were also met with guns and tear gas. Some students were killed, jailed and some fled the country. The University was closed after the riots, and she returned to Baragwanath Hospital to work. The hospital was filled with students who were under arrest. She stayed for a month, and they were called to go back to the University. The following year, on September 12, 1977, Steve Biko, the founder of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) in South Africa, was brutally killed. She organized a student protest, and the University was closed due to the protest. When she returned three weeks later to the University with the Student Representative Council members, they were expelled from the University. While she was left with two weeks to write her final examination to get her Nursing Degree. When she returned to Baragwanath hospital, they also expelled her. She continued, After Steve Biko was killed, by mobilizing the students and later the Black Consciousness movement was banned. On October 11, 1977, her and other comrades organized themselves underground and formed the Azanian Peoples Organization. Two weeks later, they were detained and held in solitary confinement. She was in solitary confinement for 21 days and not allowed to get visitation from family, pastor and lawyers. She was not allowed to read even the Bible. She slept on the cement floor with blankets full of lice and interrogated and bitten. Later, she was released on condition that she should stop organizing Anti-Apartheid. The police commissioner told her that if they arrested her again, she would go to jail for a long time. Police were assigned to her home in Soweto to monitor people coming in and out of her home. One day they came in when she was not there. They told her Mom-aunt that she should report to the police station the following morning. That’s when she fled into the neighboring country Botswana where she was declared a refugee. She stayed at a refugee camp for two days and left after the man at the camp office showed her an article in the paper about her fleeing South Africa. He told her that the South African security police told him to check if she was in the camp. She left the camp and stayed at the ANC (African National Congress) house for a short time. She could not leave the house. It was suggested that she go to the ANC Headquarters in Zambia. She left quickly, and at the airport she met the President of ANC, comrade Oliver Tambo. He told her that he heard that she was a praying woman. He asked her to pray for him and she did until his death in South Africa. She was glad that he was able to go back home and see the country he fought for. The ANC created a communal way of living that was great. They were comrades and bonded together and they were family. When you are in a liberation struggle, the nation comes first. She was working to liberate her family from Apartheid. Still, there was always the knowledge that she could be arrested and locked up for life, killed or forced into exile. These were sacrifices those working for the cause took on. However, as things got more dangerous, she was forced to leave the country and came to Baltimore in 1980. Rev. Dr. Mankekolo was in Baltimore when Nelson Mandela was released from jail. Ever active in the ANC and the Baltimore Anti-Apartheid Movement, she helped organize his visit to Washington DC in 1990. Her daughter, Ntokozo was one of the four children to welcome Nelson and Winnie Mandela. She attended some private meetings with him and found it exciting to be in the Mandelas’ presence. She met Nelson Mandela again when she went back to South Africa to direct the repatriation of exiles. Using her Masters in Public Health, she worked with the Baltimore City Health Department and was assigned to make presentations on HIV/AIDS to BCHD staff and the community. She found that the church resisted dealing with HIV/AIDS issues at that time. As a public Health professional and a minister, She saw the epidemic differently. She found out that it was more pastoral to have compassion like the Good Samaritan than to judge. She visited patients in the hospital, and some of them were suicidal because family and the church were judging them. From Apartheid struggle, HIV/AIDS became her other cause to advocate and minister. It had been during post-graduate study in public health that she received the call to ministry that she knew she must answer. In 1988, she preached her trial sermon at Bethel AME Church on Druid Hill Avenue under its pastor, Bishop John Bryant. In 1989, she earned her Master of Arts in Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary and University here in Baltimore and went on to United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio where she was graduated with the Doctor of Ministry degree in 1992. She has been a mentor in the Doctor of Ministry program at United Theological Seminary. She developed a Min D. degree with concentration on The Black Church and Public Health which fosters her interest in integrating spirituality and health. Her five students received their Doctor of Ministry. She was a Resident Chaplain at Johns Hopkins Hospital. In 2000, she founded Kalafong AME Mission Church in Baltimore. The church was formed to assist the immigrants spiritually, socially and economically and also with immigration issues. As a writer, she has written many books on various themes of empowerment and inspiration. She was the first black South African woman to receive a doctor of ministry degree. She led women’s ministry and singles ministries at Metropolitan AME church in Washington D.C. She was currently a minister at Empowerment Temple AME church, and Adjunct professor at Morgan State University. Rev. Dr Mankekolo earned a bachelor of science degree from Morgan State University, a Master of public health degree at Johns Hopkins University, Master of Theology from St Mary’s Seminar and University, and a doctorate ministry from the United Theological Seminary in Dayton Ohio. Rev. Dr. Mankekolo Mahlangu-Ngcobo was a revolutionary, minister, educator, author, women empowerment, consultant in health and International social Justice but most importantly a mother, grandmother and a great-grandmother. She is survived by her son Arthur Lovey Mahlangu, her daughter Ntokozo Ngcobo, her two granddaughters Mankekolo and Tumelo, Her grandson Tshepo, her great grand daughter Jayde, her sisters Morakane and Mapulane, her brothers Lebotsa and Oubass and daughter in law Addy. Hamba kahle, Lala Kahle, Sepela gabotse,robala ka kgotso boledi, mother of the nation Amandla Awethu The Struggle continues.

Tributes

Mankekolo Mahlangu-Ngcobo

April 21, 1949 - December 10, 2019