Herbert Chitepo

Politician, National Hero and Zimbabwe’s First Black Lawyer

Herbert Wiltshire Tapfumaneyi Chitepo on the 5 June 1923, in Watsomba village, Inyanga, Zimbabwe.

Education:

St Davids Mission, Bonda, Zimbabwe

St Augustine’s Secondary School, Penhalonga, Zimbabwe

Adams College, Natal, South Africa

University of Fort Hare, South Africa (1949)

King College, London (read Law at the Inns Of Court) (1952-53)

Career:

• Herbert Chitepo was the first black lawyer of Zimbabwe(1954)
• He was admitted as an advocate of the Southern Rhodesia High Court in late 1954 after an amendment to the Land Apportionment Act which restricted Africans from operating businesses in urban in order to allow Chitepo to occupy his Law Chambers
• Director of Public Prosecutions Tanzania

Political Career:

• Member of the Rhodesian African National Congress (ANC)
• Member of the NDP(1966)
• Member of ZAPU(1962)
• Chairman of ZANU (1963)
• Established a base in Lusaka, Zambia in 1965 from where the Zimbabwe Liberation struggle was launched

Hebert Tapfumaneyi Chitepo was assassinated in Lusaka Zambia on the 18 March 1975. He is one on Zimbabwe’s National Heroes and his remains are buried at the National Heroes Acre.

Personal Life:

Herbert Chitepo was married to Victoria Mahamba-Sithole, a South African whom he met during his teacher studies in the, they married in 1955. Victoria Chitepo now late was a prominent politician pre and post independence, she held several ministerial positions in independent Zimbabwe.