Zacharias Richard Mahabane, OLG (15 August 1881 – September 1971) was a South African politician.
Zacharias Richard Mahabane was born in the town of Thaba Nchu, Orange Free State and his parents were farmers.
[1] In 1901 at the age of twenty, he qualified as a teacher there, he then later gave up teaching to become a court interpreter in a career that lasted until 1908.
In the middle of 1927 the Church sent Reverend Mahabane and his wife to Kimberly where they remained until their departure in January 1937.
In the year of 1937 when he was elected President of the ANC for his second term, he left Kimberley for Winburg in the Free State.
[9][10] During the 1940s he concentrated more on the AAC, and on the Non-European Unity Movement, of which he became President at its foundation in 1945, remaining in that position until 1956 when he resigned.