Griffiths Mlungisi Mxenge (27 February 1935 – 19 November 1981) was born in KwaRayi, a rural settlement outside of King Williams Town, Eastern Cape.
The Defiance Campaign and the Congress of the People in Kliptown contributed to his political consciousness [1] He enrolled for an LLB degree at the University of Natal but in 1962, the same year he married Victoria Mxenge.
[2] In 1969, Mxenge was released from Robben Island and served with a two-year banning order that among other things prohibited him from entering University premises.
[1] In 1981, Mxenge was assassinated by the apartheid death squad, led by Dirk Coetzee, in Umlazi township south of Durban.
[5] Four years after her husband's murder, Victoria Mxenge was shot and hacked to death in front of her children at their Umlazi home in Durban.
[7] Nofomela, who'd been granted a stay of execution in the unrelated murder case, later had his death sentence commuted to life in prison.
His award recognised his contribution to the field of law and the supreme sacrifice he made in the fight against apartheid in South Africa [9] The Victoria and Griffiths Mxenge memorial lecture is hosted annually at the University of KwaZulu Natal's Howard College.