Persona

Joseph, Helen

Helen Joseph, tireless campaigner against apartheid, was born in Sussex, England on the 8th of April 1905. Before coming to South Africa in 1931, she taught in India. In 1932 she married Dr. M.W. Joseph. Between 1942 and 1946 Joseph was a full time Welfare and Information Officer in the South African Air Force, a move which was to alter her life irreversibly.

Joseph divorced in 1949. From 1951 to 1966 she became Secretary of the Transvaal Clothing Industry Medical Aid Society. It was here that she met Solly Sachs, from whom she learnt much of her politics. In 1953 Helen Joseph became a founding member and member of the National Executive Committee of the South African Congress of Democrats. She became the Transvaal Secretary and a National Executive member of the Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) in 1954. Joseph was a speaker at the Congress of the People and in 1956 she was one of the leaders of the mass protest of 20,000 women at the Union Buildings. In December of the same year she was charged with treason. She was banned in 1957 and in 1962 she was the first person to be placed under house arrest (1962-1971).

Other organisations in which Helen Joseph was involved were: the Human Rights Welfare Committee, which aided banished people; the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), of which she was Honorary National Vice-President (elected in 1971); the Anglican Students Federation, of which she was an Honorary life President and the United Democratic Front, of which she was an Honorary Patron (elected in 1983).

Helen Joseph died on December 25th, 1992 at the age of 87.