A memorial stone honouring anti-apartheid cleric Beyers Naudé was officially unveiled at West Park Cemetery in Montgomery Park on 2 November.
The event, hosted by the Department of Arts and Culture and the Uniting Reformed Church of Southern Africa (URCSA), commemorated the legacy of Naudé who opposed to the use of violence as a means to enforce political change.
He was considered a traitor by the Afrikaner brotherbood because of his belief in a non-racial and social cohesive society. This estranged him from this community but he was embraced by the Black community in Alexandra.
“Oom Bey [as he was affectionately called] came to our church during the dark times of apartheid,” elder of URCSA, Henry Phalatse told SABC, “but this white man gave us courage and until this day he taught us that black and white are able to live together.”
Dr Naudé was the founding member of the Christian Institute, a non-racial ecumenical organisation that challenged the church’s support of the apartheid system. As Naudé’s daughter-in-law Rita explained, the Institute was founded to help young people raise funds to further their studies. Archbishop Desmond Tutu is one of the young people this initiative helped.
“Founding the institute was his life ambition, he was extremely pro-youth,” she said.
The declaration of Dr Beyers Naudé’s grave as a national heritage site is part of the Department of Arts and Culture’s mandate to transform the heritage sector and facilitate social cohesion and nation building.
The graves of Helen Joseph, Charlotte Maxeke, Rahima Moosa and Lillian Ngoyi have also been given heritage status.
