Charlotte Maxeke is more than just the name of a Johannesburg academic hospital. It is the name of the founder of the Bantu Women’s League and one of South Africa’s first Black woman graduates.
According to South African History Online (Saho), Maxeke was born in 1874, toured America and England with her church’s choir and later again to America where she obtained a Bachelor of Science Degree from the Wilberforce University in Ohio. This made her one of the first black woman graduates in South Africa.
Maxeke was an activist and one of the first black South Africans to fight for freedom from exploitative and social conditions of African women.
Maxeke died in Johannesburg in 1939 and was later honoured by the renaming of former Johannesburg General Hospital to the Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital as well as the name of a South African Navy submarine, the SAS Charlotte Maxeke.
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