Preparations are underway ahead of struggle stalwart, JB Marks’ reburial in Ventersdorp, North West on Sunday.
Mark’s monument is currently being erected near the Tshing Sports Ground where the service will take place.
President Jacob Zuma and Premier Supra Mahumapelo are expected to speak at the service.
The proceedings are expected to start at the family home early on Sunday morning and then the cortege will leave for the sports grounds. Thereafter the proceedings will leave for the burial grounds where the tombstone and the memorial will be unveiled by President Zuma.
The former South African Communist Party and African National Congress (ANC) leader’s remains were successfully repatriated earlier this month after he died while in exile in Moscow, Russia and was buried in Norvedivechy Cemetery.
Marks who was a teacher, trade unionist and political activist was the seventh child of African rail worker John Thelelwa Marks and Betty Esau, who was of white descent.
Marks ascendance to politics was influenced by his father who was a staunch supporter of the ANC. Marks joined the party in 1924.
In 1942, he was elected president of both the Transvaal Council of non-European trade union and the African Mine Workers Union, the first trade union of African mine workers in South Africa.
– By Lebo Tshangela
