Committee to Free Moses Mayekiso records

Collection

Identifier: MSS 513 small

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The Committee to Free Moses Mayekiso records includes meeting minutes, mailings, correspondence, petitions, ledgers, invoices, and newspaper clippings.

Dates

Creation: 1987-1989

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright is retained by the authors of the items in this collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law. For photocopy and duplication requests, please contact the Stephen O. Murray and Keelung Hong Special Collections, Michigan State University Libraries.

Biographical / Historical

Moses Mayekiso (b. 1948) was a South African trade union leader and activist against the apartheid regime during the 1980s. In 1985, he was elected chairman of the Alexandra Action Committee (AAC) and also served as General Secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA). In 1986, he was a key figure in the Alexandra Township uprising after police forces attacked a funeral, resulting in Mayekiso and other AAC leadership being beaten and jailed under the charge of treason. The Committee to Free Moses Mayekiso (CFMM) was founded in 1987 in Berkeley, California, by the Workers Socialist League, Revolutionary Workers League, Labor Militant, and the Bolshevik Tendency as part of an internation effort to show solidarity for Mayekiso's freedom and anti-apartheid.