Johanna Cornelius

Cornelius was born in Lichtenburg, South Africa, and grew up in rural South Africa as one of nine children.[1] Her father and grandfather both fought in the Anglo Boer War and her mother was held in a concentration camp during the war.[2] She and her older sister, Hester Cornelius, moved to Johannesburg in the 1920s, where Johanna eventually started working in a garment factory.[1] Cornelius worked as a machinist in the factory.[2]

Cornelius was arrested and detained in jail for several house in 1932 while participating in a GWU strike.[3] After she was released from jail, she spoke to the workers and encouraged them to "demand a living wage and freedom."[3] Her speech also referenced the Great Trek and the Anglo Boer War, joining "nationalism together with the class struggle rather than with the national struggle."[2] She went to the Soviet Union as part of a workers' delegation in 1933.[1] Her trip there helped her learn more about communism and a sense of social equality.[3] When she returned from the Soviet Union, she became a full-time union organizer for GWU, working from the main office in Germiston.[1]

Cornelius worked as the GWU president from 1935 to 1937 and under her leadership, the union won reduced working hours and increased wages for workers.[1] Cornelius worked to include people of all backgrounds in the union and felt that working in the union had helped her "transcend the racial attitudes" of her past.[4] She and Hester also traveled to Cape Town in February 1936 help the GWU branch there.[2]

Cornelius was accused in 1938 of being a "communist accomplice of Sachs and for spending all her time organising black people."[2] However, she was able to successfully fight off attempts by Afrikaner nationalists who wanted to take control of the union.[1] She became a founder of the National Union of Cigarette and Tobacco Workers in 1938, later leading a two-week strike in Rustenburg in September 1940.[1] The strike in Rustenberg was "heated" and women in the strike faced tear gas and police attacks.[5]

In 1943 she ran unsuccessfully as an Independent Labor Party candidate.[1] When Solly Sachs was exiled from South Africa in 1952, she took over the GWU and worked that position until her death.[1]

Cornelius died on 21 June 1974 in Johannesburg.[2]