30 March 2025 - 00:00

At the Croesus Cemetery in Newclare, Johannesburg, near the Walter and Albertina Sisulu Memorial Garden, lies Vesta Smith, née Mpama (1922–2013), affectionately known as Ma Vesta or Ma Vee. She was a prominent community activist who put social justice at the centre of her life, 71 years of which she spent in Noordgesig, Soweto, situated to the south-west of Johannesburg, where she became an institution. Next to Ma Vesta’s grave, which also contains the remains of her first child, activist Cecilie Lynette Palmer (1944–2019), is that of fellow stalwart Ismail Jacob Mohamed, better known as Professor Mohamed (1930–2013)...