Felicia Kentridge
Felicia, Lady Kentridge | |
|---|---|
| Born | Felicia Nahoma Geffen 7 August 1930 |
| Died | 7 June 2015 (aged 84) |
| Nationality | South African citizenship, British citizenship - dual citizenship |
| Other names | Felicia, Lady Kentridge |
| Alma mater | University of Cape Town University of the Witwatersrand |
| Occupation(s) | Lawyer, anti-apartheid activist and artist |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 4, including William |
Felicia, Lady Kentridge (née Geffen; 7 August 1930 – 7 June 2015) was a South African lawyer and anti-apartheid activist who co-founded the South African Legal Resources Centre (LRC) in 1979.[1] The LRC represented black South Africans against the apartheid state and overturned numerous discriminatory laws; Kentridge was involved in some of the Centre's landmark legal cases.[2] Kentridge and her husband, the prominent lawyer Sydney Kentridge, remained involved with the LRC after the end of apartheid, though they moved permanently to England in the 1980s.[2] In her later years, Kentridge took up painting, and her son William Kentridge became a famous artist.[2]
Biography[edit]
Early life and education[edit]
Felicia, Lady Kentridge was born Felicia Nahoma Geffen in Johannesburg in 1930, the younger daughter of a Jewish legal family; her mother was South Africa's first female advocate.[3] Felicia studied law at the University of Cape Town and later the University of the Witwatersrand, obtaining her LLB from the latter in 1953.[3] In 1952, while still studying, she married Sydney Kentridge, a lawyer who went on to defend Nelson Mandela and other leading anti-apartheid figures in the Treason Trial of 1956.[2][3]
Anti-apartheid activism[edit]
Felicia and Sydney Kentridge were both staunch opponents of apartheid, and Felicia sought to overturn the legal basis for segregation and discrimination in South Africa. In the early 1970s, she visited the United States to study the work of public-interest legal centres, and was inspired to found a similar legal clinic for impoverished South Africans in 1973.[2][3] In 1979, under the direction of American civil rights attorneys Jack Greenberg and Michael Meltsner, she and a group of other prominent anti-apartheid lawyers, including her husband Sydney and Arthur Chaskalson, set up the Legal Resources Centre (modeled on the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, of which Greenberg was then director-counsel) to campaign for human rights and judicial fairness for black South Africans.[1][3] Kentridge travelled abroad to gather support for the LRC, and managed to win funding from institutions such as the Carnegie, Ford and Rockefeller Foundations.[2] She ran the LRC's administrative affairs and also contributed to some of its most important legal victories, helping to overturn discriminatory laws such as the system of mandatory passes for black South Africans.[2][3]
In the early 1980s, Kentridge and her husband moved to London, though she continued to travel to South Africa regularly to assist the LRC.[3] She furthermore worked as the chairperson of the Legal Resources Trust, and helped to set up the Southern Africa Legal Services and Legal Education Project and the British Legal Assistance Trust, which later became part of the Canon Collins Education and Legal Assistance Trust.[3] After the end of apartheid in 1994, Kentridge remained involved with the LRC, which continues to conduct public-interest legal work to the present day.[2] The South African General Bar Council awards an annual prize named in Kentridge's honour, the Sydney and Felicia Kentridge Award, for excellence in public-interest law.[4]
Later life and death[edit]
In her later years, Kentridge became a painter, working mostly in watercolour.[2] She was eventually diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, which ultimately left her paralysed. She died at home in Maida Vale, London, in June 2015.[3]
Personal life[edit]
In 1952, Geffen married Sydney Kentridge (now Sir Sydney), a South African lawyer and one-time Constitutional Court judge, who survived her. At the time of her death in 2015, she had four children, nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild.[3] Her eldest son, William, is a South African artist, public speaker and filmmaker.[5]
References[edit]
- ^ a b "Rights campaigner Felicia Kentridge dies". Times Live. 9 June 2015. Retrieved 17 July 2015.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Felicia Kentridge obituary". The Guardian. 5 July 2015. Retrieved 17 July 2015.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "STATEMENT FROM THE LRC ON LEARNING OF THE DEATH OF LADY FELICIA KENTRIDGE". Legal Resources Centre. 8 June 2015. Archived from the original on 21 July 2015. Retrieved 17 July 2015.
- ^ "Pay the debt forward: Public Protector asks her peers". Public Protector South Africa. 21 July 2015. Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
- ^ "William Kentridge: "In Praise of Shadows"". Harvard Magazine. 26 March 2015. Retrieved 20 July 2015.
External links[edit]
- "South African who outwitted apartheid dies in London". Global South Africans. 12 June 2015.
- "Felicia Kentridge: a most remarkable woman". South African Jewish Report. 10 June 2015.
- Legal Resources Centre official website
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
- 1930 births
- 2015 deaths
- 20th-century South African lawyers
- 21st-century South African lawyers
- Opposition to apartheid in South Africa
- Lawyers from Johannesburg
- Activists from Johannesburg
- South African emigrants to the United Kingdom
- South African Jews
- South African women lawyers
- University of Cape Town alumni
- University of the Witwatersrand alumni
- White South African anti-apartheid activists
- 20th-century South African women lawyers
- 21st-century South African women lawyers
- Wives of knights
- Neurological disease deaths in England
- Deaths from progressive supranuclear palsy