Berth Gxowa was born Bertha Mashaba on November 26th 1834 in Germiston, South Africa. Bertha Gxowa attended Thokoza Primary School and the Public Secondary School. Her father was a garment worker who became the first black person to work on the cutting floor, a job that was usually reserved for white laborers. Gxowa’s activism and interest in opposition politics were triggered by the permits that black people were subjected to carry in order to live and move in and out of their neighborhoods. Gxowa began her anti-apartheid and women’s activism career where she began working as an office assistant in the South African Clothing Workers Union. As the office assistant for the South African Clothing Workers Union she collected subscriptions from factories and participated in wage negotiations. The union sent Bertha to college where she studied bookkeeping and shorthand. Gxowa became involved in the African National Congress Youth League as well as the Women’s League. Gxowa joined the African National Congress during the anti-bantu education campaign. In 1952 Bertha joined the campaign for the defiance of unjust laws also known as the Defiance Campaign which was led by Nelson Mandela. The Defiance campaign used to go into Krugersdorp without permits in protest, she was arrested for this and spent ten days in jail for refusing to pay a fine. In 1955 she became the Transvaal secretary then the national vice-president. Gxowa was one of the founding members of the Federation of South African Women in 1954, with whom she organized the 1956 Women’s March on the Union Building. The march was against the extension of passes to women. Gxowa along with Helen Joseph and a few others traveled across South Africa to collect signatures on 20,000 petitions that were then presented at the march. Gxowa was one of the 156 people accused in the 1956 Treason Trial; she remained on trial until the charges were dropped in 1959. In 1960 she was arrested in the state of emergency and banned under the Suppression of Communism Act. Bertha Gxowa was banned for 11 years; once the ban was lifted she joined the South African National Tuberculosis Association and did community work, she went back to the African Methodist Church which she believed was the only church that stood for black people. In 1990 after all political parties were legalized, she was called upon to reorganize the ANC’s Katlehong branch. Bertha Gxowa started a women’s club that was invited to participate in voter education during the 1994 election campaign. In 1994 Gxowa served in parliament as an ANC member, she was also a member of the Home Affairs and Health Parliamentary Portfolio Committees in parliament until 2004. As a member of parliament she served two terms. Gxowa remained active in the ANC Women’s League where she became national treasurer and chair person of Gauteng. Her other activities were sitting as a chairperson on the board of two women’s skill development projects, Malibongwe and Kwazekwasa, both projects are committed to the emancipation of women. Bertha married Cecil Mntukanti Gxowa and had five children. Gxowa also has a hospital named after her in Gauteng. Bertha Gxowa died in a Johannesburg hospital on November 19th 2010 at the age of 75.

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