Reg September: Liberated African, by Patric Tariq Mellet

Reginald Kenneth September was known to all who loved him as Uncle Reg. In his last year at Trafalgar High School in District Six, Reg came to meet a number of influential mentors at the CPSA offices in District Six – James la Guma, Cissie Gool, John Gomas and Moses Kotane in particular, and joined the National Liberation League formed in 1935. In 1953 Reg September as General Secretary alongside James la Guma as President became the founding father, and driver of the South African Coloured People's Congress (1953 to 1968) modelled on the older African People's Organisation founded in 1902 and considered its successor.

Reg was a trades unionist, journalist, activist, diplomat, strategist, and freedom fighter who experienced detentions, imprisonment, being put on trial, going on the run, and exile. Sent to London in 1952 for a brief period, together with Vella Pillay they pioneered the first foundations of black South Africa's diplomatic missions abroad and what would grow into the Anti-Apartheid Movement - the Solidarity Committee for a Democratic South Africa. A right-hand man and close companion to Oliver Tambo, Reg played a key leadership role in the early 1960s leading to the watershed Morogoro conference in 1969. This set the edges for the ANC's further development at a time when it could have floundered and failed. From 1969 he held the strategic position as ANC Chief Representative for the UK and Western Europe for almost 10 years and went on over time to hold many leadership positions before returning to South Africa in 1990 as part of the first leadership team after the unbanning of liberation organisations and start of negotiations. Many consider Reg September as deserving recognition as being a national Tambo and Mandela type leader arising out of the Camissa African or Coloured community – a quiet, humble gentleman-revolutionary not seeking the limelight. His story deserves to be known more widely.