[imagesource: Google]

Googling your own name is one thing, but you know you’ve left a mark when the daily Google Doodle is dedicated to your achievements.

Head here and you’ll be greeted by that image above, with a distinctly South African flavour.

Today, April 8, would have been Helen Joseph’s 116th birthday, and the search engine is honouring a true South African struggle hero.

Joseph is recognised as one of our most influential freedom fighters and women’s rights advocates, despite having been born in Eastbourne, East Sussex, in 1905, as Helen Beatrice May Fennell.

After teaching for three years in India, reports SA History, she then settled in Durban around 1930, and met and married a dentist, Billie Joseph.

They would later divorce after the Second World War, where she served as an information and welfare officer in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, which set in motion a career dedicated to social upliftment and fighting injustice:

Helen was a founder member of the African National Congress (ANC)’s white ally, the Congress of Democrats (COD), and national secretary of Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) in the 1950s.

Image: Baileys African History Archive

In 1955, she was one of the leaders who read out the clauses of the Freedom Charter at the Congress of the People. The Women’s March on 9 August 1956 was one of the most memorable moments of her illustrious political career, as she was one of the main organisers of the protest.

This is why we celebrate Women’s Day in South Africa on August 9, in case you were wondering.

Arrested on a charge of high treason in December 1956, and banned in 1957, Helen’s life became a long saga of police persecution.

Image: Baileys African History Archive

She was the first person to be placed under house arrest in 1962, and she survived several assassination attempts.

Those attempts on her life included shots through her bedroom window late at night, and one incident where a bomb was wired to her home’s front gate.

After being diagnosed with cancer in 1971, she eventually passed away on Christmas Day in 1992.

To honour her, the ANC awarded Joseph the Isitwalandwe/Seaparankoe Award, which is the ANC’s highest award.

If you really want to dig deep, you can read Joseph’s autobiography, Side By Side, here.

So, that’s your history lesson for the day sorted.

As you were.

[source:sahistory]