Ellen Kuzwayo activism included serving as the president of the Black Consumer Union of South Africa and the Maggie Magaba Trust. On the 1985 publication of her autobiography, "Call Me Woman", in which she described being beaten by her husband, Kuzwayo became the first black writer to win South Africa's leading literary prize, the CNA Award. After Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South African president in 1994, Kuzwayo became a member of the country's first multiracial Parliament, aged 79, and served for five years until June 1999, when she was South Africa's longest-serving parliamentarian. With director Betty Wolpert, Kuzwayo was involved in
Freedom Day (South Africa) Freedom Day (South Africa) Freedom Day is a public holiday in South Africa celebrated on 27 April. It celebrates freedom and commemorates the first post-apartheid elections held on that day in 1994. The elections were the first non-racial national elections where everyone of voting age of over 18 from any race group, including foreign citizens permanently resident in South Africa, were allowed to vote. Previously, under the apartheid regime, non-whites in general had only limited rights to vote while indigenous black South Africans had no voting rights whatsoever. It is part of the twelve public holidays determined by the Public