Skip to main content
South Africa liberation movement pays tribute to Hugh Masekela
South African musician Hugh Masekela performed at Westminster Abbey in 2012

SOUTH AFRICA’S liberation movement paid tribute to jazz legend and anti-apartheid struggle icon Hugh Masekela today following his death at 78.

The flugelhornist succumbed to prostate cancer, diagnosed a decade ago, his family said today.

The ruling ANC said “Bra Hugh,” as he was known, “became the voice and conscience of countless generations of South Africans.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Pic: Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital only hospital in Soweto and the largest in sub Saharan Africa in 2017 / Pic: amanderson2/CC
Features / 22 May 2026
22 May 2026

ROGER MCKENZIE recalls the one-in-a-generation communist leader murdered at the dawn of a new South Africa 33 years ago last April 10

me and the party from Manifesto Press with the Bakoena Royal Council in KwaZulu Natal
South Africa / 14 May 2026
14 May 2026

ROGER McKENZIE looks at how ancient traditions practiced today can be the cornerstone of anti-imperialism in Africa

CHANGING TIMES: Delegates at a South African Communist Party national congress at the University of Johannesburg. Photo: GCIS/Creative Commons
Features / 17 July 2025
17 July 2025

The shared path of the South African Communist Party and the ANC to the ballot box has found itself at a junction. SABINA PRICE reports

HISTORIC DREAM UNFULFILLED: The Freedom Charter seen here written on the wall of a cell in the Palace of Justice in Pretoria during the 1964 Rivonia Trial, where Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment. Photo: Creative Commons — PHParsons
Features / 7 July 2025
7 July 2025

The charter emerged from a profoundly democratic process where people across South Africa answered ‘What kind of country do we want?’ — but imperial backlash and neoliberal compromise deferred its deepest transformations, argues RONNIE KASRILS