• Victoria Nonyamezelo Mxenge (1942-1985), South African civil rights lawyer and anti-apartheid activist, was shot to death outside her home in Durban on August 1, 1985. Mxenge was an executive member of the United Democratic Front, Natal, and advocated the full participation of women in shaping a nonracial, democratic, and free South Africa. A professional nurse and midwife, she later practiced law in the firm of her husband, antiapartheid and labor union activist Griffiths Mxenge. After his murder in 1981, Victoria Mxenge carried on the law practice, continuing to handle the majority of political cases in Natal, as well as many others in South Africa. In addition to nonviolent opposition to apartheid, Victoria Mxenge worked with many community and women's organizations. At her funeral, in dedication to her activism and support for women, members of the Natal Organization of Women defied male tradition and carried Victoria Mxenge's casket. Mxenge's daughter, Namhla, walked behind the casket.
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Victoria N. Mxenge postcard

From Women Making History: The Revolutionary Feminist Postcard Art of Helaine Victoria Press by Julia M. Allen and Jocelyn H. Cohen

  • Printed offset, 4 ¼” x 6”, in sepia with black border. A sad image with a heroic story behind it. The photographer, Catherine Allport, sent us the photograph for consideration for the Women in Social Protest set, but that series was limited to events and women in the US. Helaine Victoria Press had room for one more postcard on the press sheet for the set and decided to print this one as an introduction to what they anticipated ­would be a second set, Women in Social Protest: International. That set, however, never came to pass.
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  • HISTORY / Women
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