Josie Mpama (21 March 1903 – 3 December 1979), born Josephine Palmer, was a South African anti-apartheid and labor activist.
A forceful campaigner against racial segregation and for labor and women's rights, she is considered the first black woman to play a major role in the Communist Party of South Africa.
Josephine Palmer was born in 1903 in Potchefstroom in what was then known as the Transvaal Colony, now the North West Province of South Africa.
[1] She described herself as coloured; her father was Zulu, though his family had left their community and converted to Christianity, and her mother was Mfengu, Afrikaner, and moSotho.
[1][3] In 1928, she led a campaign against requiring black residents of the Potchefstroom area to obtain lodger's permits for anyone staying in their homes, including their own adult children.
[1][5] Mpama wrote for Umsebenzi, the official press organ of the Communist Party, in the 1920s and '30s, highlighting the struggles of black workers.
[1][6] Mpama was common-law married to Thabo Edwin Mofutsanyana, a leader in the African National Congress and the Communist Party of South Africa, in the 1920s.