Solomon Mahlangu

He was primarily raised by his mother, Martha Mahlangu who worked as a domestic worker, as his father largely abandoned the family in 1962.

[4] Mahlangu joined a unit of ten men at Funda Camp who received training in sabotage, military combat, scouting and politics.

[4] After months of paramilitary training, Mahlangu's unit travelled to Eswatini, where they were given false-bottom suitcases containing ANC pamphlets, guns, ammunition and explosives.

In the ensuing confusion, Motaung shot and killed two warehouse employees, Rupert Kessner and Kenneth Wolfendale, and wounded another two people.

Mahlangu was convicted on all counts, while Motaung had been so severely beaten by police while in detention that he suffered brain injuries and was declared unfit to stand trial.

[5]: 593 [6] In terms of South African law at the time, the court was obliged to sentence someone convicted for murder to death unless the accused proved mitigating circumstances.

[5] With unprecedented international condemnation[9] of the then-South African Government and to stop protest at his funeral, police buried Mahlangu in Atteridgeville.

[4] South Africa's post-Apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission examined the cases of Solomon Mahlangu and Monty Motaung and found that both men were responsible for the deaths of Rupert Kessner and Kenneth Wolfendale.

Lastly it found both the African National Congress and the commanding officer of uMkhonto weSizwe guilty of gross human rights violations.

The square is focused on a bronze statue of Mahlangu wearing MK camouflage and incorporating children's depictions of "fruits of freedom".

[9] In the city of Durban, there was a major arterial road named 'Edwin Swales VC Drive', after a RAF bomber commander who died in 1945.