Press Alert: SACP to hold the 31st Annual Joe Slovo Commemoration
SACP Communications
South African Communist Party
Press Alert
SACP to hold the 31st Annual Joe Slovo Commemoration
Sunday, 4 January 2026:- The South African Communist Party (SACP) will hold the 31st annual Joe Slovo commemoration on Tuesday 6 January 2026.
At the time of his death in 1995, Comrade Joe Slovo was the National Chairperson of the SACP. He had previously held the position of SACP General Secretary from 1986 to 1991. He was also the former Chief of Staff of uMkhonto weSizwe, the South African people’s liberation army.
Comrade Joe Slovo was one of the drafters of the Freedom Charter that was adopted in 1955. At the first consultative conference of the African National Congress (ANC) held in Zambia in 1985, he was elected to the National Executive Committee of the ANC – the first white person to be elected to the ANC’s NEC.
He served as the Minister of Housing in the first administration of a democratic South Africa under President Nelson Mandela until his death on 6 January 1995.
Details of the 31st Joe Slovo Commemoration are as follows:
Date: Tuesday, 6 January 2026
Time: 10h00
Arrival: 09h00
Venue: The Heroes’ Acre, Avalon Cemetery, Soweto
Keynote speaker: SACP General Secretary, Comrade Solly Mapaila will deliver the message of the SACP.
Alliance partners, the Young Communist League of South Africa, and Contralesa will also address the commemoration.
The SACP invites members of the media to cover the commemoration.