1897 – 1963

First President of the National Liberation League, Cape Town City Councillor, President of the Non-European Front, Member of the Communist Party of South Africa

Cissie Gool was born in Cape Town in 1897. Her father was the prominent politician Dr Abdullah Abdurahman, leader of the African People's Organisation (APO) and first black South African to be elected to the Cape Town City Council in 1904.

She attended the Trafalgar Public School, which was founded by her father, and was tutored by both Olive Schreiner and Mohandas (more commonly known as Mahatma) Gandhi.

In 1919, Miss Abdurahman married Dr Abdul Hamid Gool, but left him for fellow activist Sam Kahn in 1936. In the same year, Cissie was among the founders of the National Liberation League (NLL) and became its first president, with a membership comprised of the Coloured intelligentsia of Cape Town, including James la Guma, the father of Alex, as secretary.

In 1936, when the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) initiated its United Front programme against the government, in cooperation with the African National Congress (ANC), the NNL was also drawn into the campaign that included strike action, boycotts and demonstrations.

Cissie Gool's leftist orientation signalled a major political break from her father. From 1938 to 1951 Cissie Gool represented Cape Town's Ward (District) Six on the Cape Town City Council and for several years was the only woman serving on the City Council. In 1949, she was elected chairperson of the City Council's Health Committee.

During the 1940s, Cissie Gool became the president of the Non-European Front and also became more active in the passive resistance campaign in Durban. She was arrested and charged for her involvement in the 1946 Passive Resistance campaign, but this did not deter her from her political activities.

ln 1951, she appeared in the Cape Town magistrate's court for holding an unauthorised public meeting, and was also active in the Franchise Action Council, the predecessor of the South African Coloured People's Congress (SACPC). She was later banned under the Suppression of Communism Act in 1954, effectively halting her above-ground political activities.

In 1962, Cissie received an LLB degree from the University of Cape Town and was admitted as an advocate to the Supreme Court. She passed away from a stroke in Cape Town in 1963, and was buried at the Muslim cemetery next to her father in Observatory.

Cissie Gool was posthumously awarded the Order of Luthuli in Silver by the South African government in 2003 for her excellent contribution to the struggle for liberation and for a just, non-racist and democratic South Africa.