Moses Mabhida - A Working Class Hero November 27, 2009 The name Moses Mabhida Stadium has been on everyone's lips this week as AmaZulu prepare for the official opening of the venue on Sunday... We thought we should give you a brief background to the man whose name will forever resonate with this world class 2010 FIFA World Cup venue.

Moses Mabhida: Biography

- Moses Mabhida (14 October 1923 ? March 1986) was a South African politician and working class hero.

- Mabhida was born into a peasant family which was later forced off the land. Mabhida was drawn to trade unionism by the late Harry Gwala, then an ardent unionist and member of the South African Communist Party.

- He was a central participant in the development of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) and was elected a vice-president at its first congress in 1955. He also served as secretary of the African National Congress ANC's Pietermaritzburg branch in the mid-1950s, and had a close working relationship with Chief Albert Luthuli.

- Mabhida organised international solidarity activities in Prague (in the then Checkoslovakia) with the World Federation of Trade Unions, and with the developing African trade union federations.

- In the 1980's he was based at various times in Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland. In 1985, while on a mission to Havana, Cuba Mabhida suffered a stroke, and after a year of illness, died of a heart attack in Maputo, Mozambique and was buried there in March 1986. He was in 2006 reburied at the Heroes Acre in Slangspruit, Pietermaritzburg South Africa in an event attended by the then President Thabo Mbeki.

- The South African government bestowed this giant with the Baobab Award posthumously, for his tireless efforts struggling to change our country for the better. Indeed, today, all South Africans, black and white enjoy these freedoms enshrined in the Freedom Charter and the constitution, of which Mabhida sacrificed for in his entire life.

Click HERE to view the Moses Mabhida website