Philip Kgosana drives De Waal off the bends of famous Cape Town road

Since it was built in the early 1920s‚ De Waal Drive has snaked into Cape Town from the south around the foothills of Table Mountain. But that’s about to change after a unanimous vote by the Cape Town council on Thursday to rename the road after Pan African Congress stalwart Philip Kgosana.

But that’s about to change after a unanimous vote by the Cape Town council on Thursday to rename the road after Pan African Congress stalwart Philip Kgosana.

As a 23-year-old‚ Kgosana led between 30‚000 and 50‚000 people from Langa and Nyanga to parliament in an anti-pass march‚ traversing the length of De Waal Drive.

He died at the age of 80 in April‚ and was described in a report to the council as a “true‚ humble and unsung hero of the struggle towards democracy in South Africa”.

The report added: “His legacy of peaceful engagement with government will be cemented by the renaming of this major drive in his honour‚ in memory of him and for the benefit of future generations.”

DA councillor Gillion Bosman‚ said he wished Kgosana was still around to advise young leaders. “Mr Kgosana‚ a gallant servant leader‚ is a true unsung hero of the long walk to freedom for South African. At a young age he demonstrated clear leadership in the face of abhorrent oppression‚” he said.

The city council also agreed to rename Salazar Square‚ next to the new Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital on the Foreshore‚ after Hamilton Naki. The renaming request was made by Richard Friedland‚ CEO of hospital owner Netcare.

With no medical training‚ Naki became a skilled experimental surgeon. He was the anaesthetist when heart transplant pioneer Barnard began organ transplants on stray dogs and went on to perform complex operations on animals at the University of Cape Town medical school.

Said Michael Lee‚ whose novel Heartbeat tells the story of the world’s first heart transplant in 1967: “In the early 1960s‚ he worked as an assistant with the Barnard brothers [Christiaan and Marius] in the laboratory where the skills needed to carry out subsequent human heart transplants were honed to near perfection.

“It’s a beautiful South African story that he achieved so much with so little formal education and overcame so many disadvantages in the process.”