President Cyril Ramaphosa arriving in Fort Beaufort, Eastern Cape ahead of the 150th birthday celebrations of Charlotte Mannya Maxeke in Eastern Cape. Pictures: Lubabalo Ngcukana/City Press
In commemorating the 150th anniversary of the birth of liberation struggle heroine and human rights campaigner Charlotte Maxeke, who was born in Fort Beaufort, Eastern Cape, on April 7 1871 (although some sources say she was born in Botlokwa, outside Polokwane), President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday proposed that a college be built in her hometown.
Ramaphosa said it was only fitting that Maxeke, who, after graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree from Wilberforce University, Ohio, US, in 1901, becoming the first indigenous South African woman to attain a university degree, should have a college named after her.