The former student movement leader of 1976 became a voice for change and education.
Murphy Morobe's life seems almost like a personal reflection of South Africa's struggle to end apartheid and its reconstruction after 1992. I recently spoke to him personally about the impact on him.
Morobe reported that he began to seriously develop political consciousness after transferring to Morris Isaacson High School for his final two years of secondary schooling.
The school's headmaster, LM Mathabathe, like his young science master, Fanyana Mazibuko, together with many other instructors, had a real influence on the students, helping to direct their political thinking in a school where ideas could be discussed – carefully, but beyond the “Bantu education” curriculum.
As Mazibuko described the school's ethos to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission years later: “Morris Isakson was a highly disciplined school, almost military in its discipline. The other side of Morris Isakson is that it was politically aware. Upon my arrival at Morris Isakson, a number of things happened that indicated this. The example of this political awareness and the principal's leadership as a politically aware person is first of all the (Abrams) Tiro case.
“In the Tiro case, the principal decided to hire a person who had been expelled from the university…