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Nakasa finally rests at home

SCHOOLCHILDREN waving South African flags formed a guard of honour on a road in Chesterville, near Durban, as the hearse carrying the remains of their hero, Nathaniel Ndazana Nakasa, drove by.

The cortege stopped in front of HP Ngwenya Public Primary School, Nakasa's alma mater, and school- children ran up Wiggins Road to listen to an address by KwaZulu-Natal health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo.

Just 650m away is Chesterville Secondary School where the cortege had also stopped on Saturday to hear pupils sing for the iconic journalist who died in 1965 in exile after falling from a high-rise building in New York.

"We never really believed that he died until we saw the place where he died," said Nakasa's nephew Dr Sipho Masondo at his uncle's funeral service held at the Durban City Hall.

Masondo said when he and the Nakasa family looked up at the tall building from the spot where his uncle is said to have died, he was convinced he did not commit suicide.

Masondo said he believed Nakasa was a casualty of the Cold War. He said the late anti-apartheid activist and singer Miriam Makeba told him his uncle had been interviewing her a day before he died. The interview was never completed as Nakasa had to leave after receiving a phone call.

Nakasa was stripped of his citizenship by the apartheid government when he was compelled to leave SA on an exit permit in 1964 to pursue his studies as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard.

Nakasa, who died aged 28, was buried at New York's Ferncliff Cemetery in 1965. His remains were brought back homeon August 19 after the New York Supreme Court granted the South African government permission to repatriate him.

 

Nakasa wrote for Ilanga , Drum , Rand Daily Mail and New York Times .

Veteran journalist and press ombudsman Joe Thloloe, a friend and former colleague of Nakasa, reminisced about the time Nakasa joined Drum.

He said many of the young journalists, himself and Nakasa included, all looked up to Can Themba. "We worshipped at his feet."

Thloloe said they wanted to write as beautiful as Themba and like him, lived by the expression: "Live fast, die young and have a good-looking corpse."

KwaZulu-Natal businessman Don Mkhwanazi suggested that the road linking Westville and Chesterville, Nakasa's township, be named after Nakasa.

SA National Editors' Forum executive director Mathatha Tsedu said Gladys Maphumulo, Nakasa's sister, deserved presidential honours for her efforts that culminated in the repatriation of her brother's remains.

ndabezithat@timesmedia.co.za

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