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Nthato Motlana’s full name is Dr. Nthato Harrison Motlana. He was born on February 16, 1925, in Marapyane, South Africa. He lived until he was 83, and passed away on November 30, 2008. As a child, he lived in poverty, and he spoke Tswana. He went to a Luthern missionary school, then to the University of Fort Hare, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree. Motlana then received a scholarship and studied medicine at the Medical School of the University of the Witwatersrand. Under the apartheid system, he was classified as a native person. After he qualified, he opened a medical practice in Soweto and became the family doctor for Nelson Mandela. Motlana became politically active while he was in school, and he joined the ANC Youth League, and eventually became its secretary-general. Motlana helped organize the Defiance Campaign in 1952, which protested apartheid and the government, and he co-founded the Black Parents Association after the 1976 Soweto Riots. The Committee of Ten grew out of these organizations, and Motlana was the chairman. This committee was prominent in its resistance to apartheid. He started up many companies that failed, but eventually, he opened a hospital, which became the first black-owned private hospital in South Africa. He invested in many companies, and his wealth grew, and he became politically active. (South African History Online)

The image below illustrates Dr. Nthato Motlana. (http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0256-95742009000400014)

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Nthato Motlana owned the largest black corporation in South Africa. He ran New Africa Investments Limited, which is worth $1.9 billion U.S. dollars. Many say that he benefited from the government’s black economic empowerment (BEE) initiative because “Most of the genial doctor's wealth appears to have come from acquiring stakes in other people's companies, often sold to him in the interests of giving blacks more power in the economy.” Some challenge whether Motlana naturally achieved his wealth, but he says: “People think I got where I am because of affirmative action…But I say: to hell with that, I got here because of hard work.” (A Blacker Shade of Pale) It is likely Motlana benefited from the apartheid system, but he fought hard against it, whereas many other black businesspeople fought against apartheid to continue to profit off of it.

The image below illustrates current South African president Cyril Ramaphosa in 2018 speaking about black economic power and that it is only personal enrichment. (https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/for-south-africas-new-president-black-economic-empowerment-is-all-about-personal-enrichment/)

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In South Africa, black people held less than 0.5% of stockmarket positions and less than 4% of managerial positions. (A Blacker Shade of Pale) The goal of divestment was to lead companies to black leadership. However that was not progressing well and Motlana said, “the trend is to turn over companies to white South Africans, who may decide to salve their consciences by putting a few blacks on the board. But that's just tokenism” (US Divestment Misses the Mark in South Africa, 2). Motlana sees the fight against this part of apartheid particularly challenging, and as he said, “tokenism.” Following his release from prison, Motlana said “I'm hoping that South Africa will read the signs correctly and stood meaningful changes within South Africa because the Bantustan policy is just a laughable farce” (Committee of Ten Chairman Motlana Interviewed on His Release, 0:44-0:57). Additionally, Motlana said, “South Africa must abolish a law called the Population Regulation Act, which defines in legal terms what is black, what is Asian, what is coloured, and what is white. Secondly, the South African government must get rid of the Group Areas Act, and thirdly and most important, it must amend the constitution so as to include all South Africans as voters in a common fatherland” (South Africa: Apartheid and the Future, 29:32-30:07). Motlana is strongly against the Population Regulation Act, which classified everyone as white, coloured, native, or Asian. As a prominent leader of the Committee of Ten and other groups following the 1976 riots, he was outspoken against apartheid and was in a small minority of wealthy black businesspeople.

The image below illustrates Nthato Motlana speaking at an MIT event in 1985. He spoke about what Americans can do about apartheid. (https://www.blackhistory.mit.edu/archive/nthato-motlana-mit-1985)

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Considering Nthato Motlana’s strong public stance against apartheid, even though he benefitted from the system, he was an outlier of wealthy people speaking out to abolish apartheid. Motlana is an interesting person because he was widely popular in Soweto and around South Africa, and he is one of the wealthiest black South Africans. In elections between Motlana along with the Committee of Ten and the current community council, Motlana and the committee received 73 percent of the vote. (The Politics of Necessity: Community Organizing and Democracy in South Africa, 28) Knowing about Nthato Motlana can help us better understand South Africa under apartheid because we can see that investments from the government to “empower” black people were mostly creating a black bourgeois. It also helps us understand South Africa under apartheid because we can see the drastic inequalities in employment in high-level positions, and the attempts to try and make it seem like they were making progress on company boards, while ultimately maintaining the system. I think it is useful to learn about Motlana because we see someone who truly wanted to overturn apartheid and spent large portions of his life dedicated to it. As well, it is useful to know Motlana because you can see the view of someone at the top in wealth. Learning about Nthato Motlana added to my knowledge about the economy and the business aspects of apartheid.

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The image below illustrates Nthato Motlana as Soweto Mayor. (https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/soweto-mayor-nthato-motlana-news-photo/583239490)

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The image in the background illustrates Nthato Motlana. (https://topempowerment.co.za/empowerment-pioneer-nthato-motlana/)

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The image below shows the economic growth of South Africa and other countries. This shows the lingering effects of apartheid policies after abolition. (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/ces.2009.15)