Whenever he walked around the streets of Orlando East, Soweto, people would raise their fists and chant:  "Power!"

This is how community members of Orlando East saluted Tanzania national and political activist Tom Gununu Mabinda when he strolled the dusty streets of the township in the 1970s. So relied upon was Mabinda such that whenever neighbours ran into all sorts of difficulties, they would rush to his house to seek assistance.

These are the fond memories his widow Mamsy Ndukula shared during an interview with Sowetan. Gununu, a skilled boxer and petrol bomb-maker, is credited as being one of the faces behind the June 16 1976 youth uprisings. The schoolchildren were revolting against the apartheid system's plan to make Afrikaans the medium of instruction in township schools.

"Whenever people saw him in the streets, they would chant, 'Power. Power to the people'," a smiling Ndukula, 57, said. "If there were thugs breaking into a house in the early hours of the morning, neighbours would come and wake up my husband and he would, without coming up with excuses, rush to the crime scene to assist."

Neighbour Stephen Lesejane, who was aged 23 during the June 16 youth uprisings and was one of Mabinda's proteges, attested to Ndukula's testimony. Lesejane said Mabinda would recruit young men to train as boxers at Orlando Stadium.

After the workouts were done, Mabinda would dish out lessons on SA's political history, and conclude by teaching them how to make petrol bombs. "During the June 16 youth uprisings, there were hostel dwellers who were attacking protesting schoolchildren.

The hostel dwellers also took advantage of the mayhem by breaking into houses and stealing valuable items while others violently removed people from their homes and hijacked the units.

Bra Tom would organise a large number of young men, with a blessing from their parents, make us wear white headbands produced from bedding sheets and make us confront the hostel dwellers who were attacking homes as well as schoolchildren involved in the June 16 youth uprisings."

A white headband showed you came from Orlando East, and those wearing blue headbands were from Orlando West. "We used the petrol bombs  to attack Mzimhlophe Hostel and we also forced  those who had hijacked houses out of the homes. We also removed railway tracks to make it difficult for hostel dwellers to travel to work. We also attacked police hippos with petrol bombs," narrated Lesejane.

He said Mabinda would lead from the front while carrying an axe. Ndukula added that Mabinda, who was influenced by his father, an ex-World War II soldier, to be a political activist, struggled to hold on to jobs because he struggled to get along with white people. He worked as an actor and a company messenger. "There was a time he got fired for beating up a white colleague who had questioned why Tom was using an elevator reserved for whites."

During the apartheid-era, black and white people used different elevators, including many other public facilities like toilets. Ndukula said she was drawn to the skilled orthodox-stance boxer - who contested in the lightweight division - due to his tall and dark frame. "Besides always being well-dressed in suits, I loved how well-spoken he was," she said.

Mabinda was arrested in 1977 after police raided his home and found a large number of swords. When he got out of prison, he went on exile in Angola, where he died.

Ndukula said though officials from her husband's political party informed her he was killed in an accident, there were rumours that he was executed after he was accused of being a spy. "If indeed he was killed on suspicions he was a spy, that wouldn't make sense because he loathed white people."

Ndukula said she was also not at peace that government was failing to repatriate her husband's remains to SA. "When I make the request to bring back his bones, government officials would come up with the excuse that the place where Tom was buried is full of landmines and is dangerous to access," she said.