DAVID RUSSELL, 75, the anti-apartheid Anglican priest who starved in protest to starvation rations and put his body before a bulldozer, had rich Eastern Cape roots nurtured by a deep friendship with Steve Biko.His peaceful death from bone marrow cancer at 1.30pm on Sunday, where he was surrounded by family at their home in Rosebank, Cape Town, evoked strong memories here.
She said: “David did not act out of showmanship. It was who he was. He stood on the side of the oppressed. He was a humanitarian who embraced a lot of people across a lot of experiences. He lived those experiences in solidarity.”
After spending a year of reflection in 1973 at Masite Mission in Lesotho, where he spent time with Desmond Tutu, Russell returned to Cape Town and declined his priestly pay, and instead earned his keep working as a “handlanger” for a Coloured plumber from Athlone.
Among his actions were his famous fasts on the steps of St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town in protest to detention, and an organised a vigil after Biko was seized by the security police outside Grahamstown in 1977.
Russell had held one of his last meetings with Biko and comrades at Zanimpilo Clinic, a black consciousness movement project, under cover of darkness in 1977 prior to Biko’s detention.
In the year of Biko’s death, Russell wrote of how he grappled in his mind with putting himself before the bulldozers, would it be “crazy or melodramatic”, but on the day of the demolitions at Modderfontein in Cape Town, without fanfare and having decided it was “what I must do”, he “stepped in front of the bulldozer.
The driver stopped and the police rushed in and carried me away in a horizontal position”.
During this period, met Irish nun Dorothea Madden in the Cape Town townships. She wed him before a crowd of 5000 in Crossroads in October 1980.
The couple and their young sons, including Mathew Sipho Russell, moved to Mthatha in 1986 where Russell served as Suffragan Bishop, and in 1987 he was ordained as Bishop of the enormous Grahamstown Diocese, which, under his guidance, was later divided into more manageable dioceses centred on Grahamstown, Mthatha and Port Elizabeth. The boys attended St Andrew’s College.
Rhodes anthropologist and former synod member, Professor Mike Whisson said: “David brought the attention of the public to major moral issues by well-publicised, courageous and imaginative protests.
As a young parish priest in Cape Town he lay down in front of one of the bulldozers which were destroying what fragile shelters migrants had built for themselves.
“Later, in the Eastern Cape, he lived for a month on the ‘rations’ which the state considered suitable for the poor, demonstrating in his own declining physique just how inadequate they were both to physical and mental wellbeing.
He also led pilgrimages to publicise the injustices suffered by the majority of his fellow Christians and South Africans.”
Andrew, a retail developer in Johannesburg, said: “I felt free growing up. I felt no pressure to be or believe in anything.
His gift was to teach us how to think without ego, how to be objective, to be open and to listen. He was always there to play with us. I loved talking to him.”
Dorothea described Russell as “structured” while she was “flowing.
He insisted that I should be left to be free. We shared a deep spiritual bond. We moved together on a journey. I thank God.” –– mikel@dispatch.co.za
Man of the people lived his principles in solidarity
She said: “David did not act out of showmanship. It was who he was. He stood on the side of the oppressed. He was a humanitarian who embraced a lot of people across a lot of experiences. He lived those experiences in solidarity.”
After spending a year of reflection in 1973 at Masite Mission in Lesotho, where he spent time with Desmond Tutu, Russell returned to Cape Town and declined his priestly pay, and instead earned his keep working as a “handlanger” for a Coloured plumber from Athlone.
Among his actions were his famous fasts on the steps of St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town in protest to detention, and an organised a vigil after Biko was seized by the security police outside Grahamstown in 1977.
Russell had held one of his last meetings with Biko and comrades at Zanimpilo Clinic, a black consciousness movement project, under cover of darkness in 1977 prior to Biko’s detention.
In the year of Biko’s death, Russell wrote of how he grappled in his mind with putting himself before the bulldozers, would it be “crazy or melodramatic”, but on the day of the demolitions at Modderfontein in Cape Town, without fanfare and having decided it was “what I must do”, he “stepped in front of the bulldozer.
The driver stopped and the police rushed in and carried me away in a horizontal position”.
During this period, met Irish nun Dorothea Madden in the Cape Town townships. She wed him before a crowd of 5000 in Crossroads in October 1980.
The couple and their young sons, including Mathew Sipho Russell, moved to Mthatha in 1986 where Russell served as Suffragan Bishop, and in 1987 he was ordained as Bishop of the enormous Grahamstown Diocese, which, under his guidance, was later divided into more manageable dioceses centred on Grahamstown, Mthatha and Port Elizabeth. The boys attended St Andrew’s College.
Rhodes anthropologist and former synod member, Professor Mike Whisson said: “David brought the attention of the public to major moral issues by well-publicised, courageous and imaginative protests.
As a young parish priest in Cape Town he lay down in front of one of the bulldozers which were destroying what fragile shelters migrants had built for themselves.
“Later, in the Eastern Cape, he lived for a month on the ‘rations’ which the state considered suitable for the poor, demonstrating in his own declining physique just how inadequate they were both to physical and mental wellbeing.
He also led pilgrimages to publicise the injustices suffered by the majority of his fellow Christians and South Africans.”
Andrew, a retail developer in Johannesburg, said: “I felt free growing up. I felt no pressure to be or believe in anything.
His gift was to teach us how to think without ego, how to be objective, to be open and to listen. He was always there to play with us. I loved talking to him.”
Dorothea described Russell as “structured” while she was “flowing.
He insisted that I should be left to be free. We shared a deep spiritual bond. We moved together on a journey. I thank God.” –– mikel@dispatch.co.za
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