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Nomvo Booi was an anti-apartheid activist and one of the very few female founding members of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) and its military wing, the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA).

Childhood Background
Nomvo Booi was born on 16 May 1929 in a small rural town called Ezagwityi in Butterworth, Eastern Cape. Her parents James and Nkumbikazi Booi had 13 children. Nomvo was the 11th child and for this reason was given the befitting name of ‘Nomvo’. She went to Zagwityi Primary School, under the headmaster Theophilus Pamla, where she excelled academically, and as such was taken to Fort Malan in Idutywa, a rural town close to Butterworth, to begin Standard 6 (Grade 8 today). When Nomvo had completed her studies at Fort Malan, she went on to Clarkebury College, a Methodist missionary school at Engcobo, where she was to learn dressmaking and design. She completed her studies and soon went back home to Butterworth, where she opened up a dressmaking business. It was a success as she became the most sought after dressmaker in Butterworth, specialising in traditional attire and wedding gowns. Due to her popularity in the region, Nomvo attracted prominent people, such as Thembu, including Thembu chief Kaiser Matanzima and his wife Nozuko Matanzima.

While going about her dressmaking business in Butterworth, Nomvo met Mr Strauss, a businessman from Queenstown, who was impressed with her work as a dressmaker and business acumen. He offered to partner with Nomvo to expand and amalgamate both their business into one big entity. This meant that Nomvo had to relocate to Queenstown, where she worked with Mr Strauss for many years, teaching the rest of his staff dressmaking. It is here where her political curiosity and involvement began.

Early Political Career
Nomvo was politicized by the 1948 elections, when the Afrikaners, under the banner of the National Party, seized power from the British colonial government that had been in power for a long time. Still quite young, she joined the youth wing of the African National Congress (ANC) with prominent political figures such as Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, Patlako Leballo, Walter Sisulu, Oliver Reginald Tambo and Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. A year later, in 1949, the group, who had now formulated themselves as the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) compiled a policy document known as the Programme of Action, which proposed a more militant engagement in fighting against the government’s racist policies. It called for total non-compliance with the National Party and with its segregationist policies. That same year, the ANC adopted the ‘Programme of Action’ as its official policy document .From there, the ANC embarked on several campaigns against the government, including the successful Defiance Campaign in 1952. The ANCYL drew heavily on African nationalism and some among its leadership were referred to as Africanists.

Joining The PAC
When the ANC began working with the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), it turned back from on its official 1949 policy of the Programme of Action to the dismay of the ANCYL, mostly the Africanist bloc within the youth league. They saw this as an ideological shifting of the ANC and as such, on the 6th of April1959, they broke away from the party and went on to form the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) with Sobukwe elected as its inaugural president and Nomvo the regional secretary at a conference held in a community hall in Soweto, Gauteng. The newly formed PAC adopted new militant policies known as the Status Campaign and the Positive Action Campaign. The Positive Action Campaign led to the what is known as the Sharpeville Massacre on 21 March 1960, where close to 70 people were shot to death and many others injured by the security police. Nomvo was still in Queenstown at the time and only heard of the fatal shootings in Sharpeville and Langa from comrades in jail, after she had been arrested for her involvement in the PAC’s national anti-pass campaign. She would spend the next four months in detention, away from Queenstown. As a result of the nationwide protest, both the PAC and ANC were banned and were forced to operate underground. Both organisations established military wings of their respective organisations in 1961.

Banishment
Upon her return to Queenstown after serving four months in detention, Nomvo soon learned that she had lost her job at Strauss’ due to police pressure exerted on him because of Nomvo’s political involvement and activism. More misfortune followed her and she soon found out that she had been banned from Queenstown, her home for 13 years, under Section 10 of the Suppression of Communism Act, No 44 of 1950. Having nowhere to go and no employment to make ends meet for herself and her two-year old daughter at the time, she went back to Clarkebury in Engcobo, where her brother was a boarding master at Clarkebury College. There her family supported her until she was able to resurrect her sewing career. One midnight in July 1962, Nomvo’s house in Engcobo was raided by security police, where she was beaten and later detained at the local police station over the possession of a letter from a friend who had been in exile. She would spend over 10 months at the prison, where she was interrogated, with police going as far as offering her bribes to spill the beans on PAC comrades and planned activities. She never appeared before a court of law until her eleventh month in jail where she was given a further three-years in accordance to the Suppression of Communism Act. She was sent to the East London women’s prison for the first part of her three-year sentence. While serving in East London, Nomvo had further charges levelled against her, this time for addressing a gathering in Mqanduli. The case did not stick. She was then moved from East London to Kroonstad, and then later to Nylstroom. This was to further isolate her from her home, family and comrades in hopes of her succumbing to pressure from the regime. In 1966, Nomvo finished serving her sentence and was accordingly released to Idutywa. However, she could not live freely. Her release to Idutywa was a two-year banishment order and she was expected to report monthly to the local police station. Furthermore, she was continuously followed and spied on, with her house often raided.

Time in Exile
In 1981, after years of working as a dressmaker and sewing instructor in and around the Eastern Cape while also clandestinely still involved in PAC work, Nomvo – with a few other comrades including APLA Commander Sabelo Phama who was in exile – were given the task of organizing an unveiling ceremony for the former PAC President Robert Sobukwe who had fallen terminally ill and died in 1978 from lung complications at Kimberley General Hospital. The ceremony took place right under the apartheid security police’s noses in Graaff-Reinet and was well attended by people from across the country. This angered the security police and many of the ceremony’s organising committee were arrested, while Nomvo had skipped the country after being summoned to attend a meeting in Lesotho. There, she was advised not to return home for security purposes. Nomvo failed to heed the advice from comrades and began her journey back home after securing a lift from a friend who was traveling back to South Africa. After successfully passing the border of Lesotho into South Africa, they were stopped by South African police for a routine check and were both arrested and detained in Lady Grey and later moved to Umtata in the former Transkei. Upon her release, she left South Africa for Lesotho once more in 1982 and soon travelled to Tanzania where she joined the exiled comrades of the PAC and worked in the portfolio of Health and Welfare.

As her reputation and influence grew in the party, she was deployed to Zimbabwe by the PAC to assist the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) establish their women’s league. When her work in Zimbabwe had been completed, she returned to Tanzania and continued working in the portfolio of Health and Welfare and serving in the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the PAC. As one of the persons responsible for fundraising for PAC and its activities, she travelled to Netherlands and kept fraternal relations with the Azania Kommitee operating in the Netherlands. As part of PAC’s strategy to keep its combatants ideologically astute and physically fit, Nomvo, together with 10 others were sent to the Party School of the Communist Party of China to study the classics and learn from the Chinese version of socialism for when liberation is achieved in South Africa. As a sitting member of the Central Committee of the PAC, she attended numerous international women’s conferences in countries such as Austria and many of the socialist countries in Eastern Europe.

Back Home
After 10 years in exile, she returned to South Africa in 1992. Political parties, including her PAC, had been unbanned in February 1990 to pave way for transitional negotiations and the official ending of apartheid. She resettled back in her hometown of East London in the Eastern Cape and continued serving in the NEC of the PAC. Part of her work now included assisting returning exiles and connecting them with their families. In 2009, she suffered a stroke that affected her speech and over years she gradually lost her memory as well. She died in April 2016 in East London, where she was buried on 7 of May 2016.