Richard Maponya memorial service date confirmed

The memorial service of the late Richard Maponya will take place at the Rosebank Union Church on Wednesday.

The was confirmed by family spokesperson Mandla Sibeko, who confirmed to the Sowetan that the memorial service would take place at 38 St Andrews Road on the corner of Willam Nicol and Sandton Drive in Hurlingham.

The service will be from 10am till 1pm with more details on the funeral to follow.

Maponya died early on Monday morning after a short illness.

He was 99 years old and was the founder of the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce in 1964 and later the founder and chairperson of the African Chamber of Commerce.

The Limpopo-born entrepreneur, often referred to as “the father of black retail”, co-developed Soweto’s Maponya Mall in 2007.

He was born in Thlabine, near Lenyenye, about 20km west of Tzaneen.

At the age of 24, when still a teacher, he took a job as a stock taker at a clothing maker and won a promotion for both himself and his white manager. In gratitude, the manager sold Maponya soiled clothing and offcuts, which he resold in Soweto.

With the capital, he attempted to open a clothing store in Soweto, but was blocked by the apartheid government’s refusal to grant him a licence. He was represented in the dispute by Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela.

Instead, in the early 1950s, Maponya and his wife Marina (a cousin of Nelson Mandela) established the Dube Hygienic Dairy, which employed a fleet of boys on bicycles to deliver milk to customers in Soweto who had no access to electricity or refrigeration. By the 1970s, the retail empire had grown to include several general stores, car dealerships and filling stations.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Maponya was a member of the Urban Bantu Council. He resigned in 1977, shortly after youth affiliated with the ANC requested that he do so, and shortly before the council offices were burnt to the ground.

(Compiled by Gopolang Moloko, background reporting by Nica Schreuder)

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