Mokonyane was born in 1930 in Mothlabaneng, near Mahwelereng, in Limpopo province. After being expelled from boarding school in Polokwane for being argumentative about politics and the need for equality for all races, he moved to Alexandra Township in Johannesburg, living in a house owned by his father, in order to attend school in Soweto.
University of Kent; University of London. University of the Witwatersrand. University of Wales.
Latterly residing in London, he was best known for his leadership during the 1957 Alexandra Business Boycott, one of the most successful single-issue campaigns undertaken during Apartheid. He later majored in economics and philosophy at the University of Witwatersrand. He later left SOYA to join the Movement Foreign a Democracy of Content.
When the 1957 Alexandra Business Boycott was announced, in protest against the local bus company’s attempt to raise its fares, Mokonyane joined the boycott committee as Publicity Secretary and then later as the Secretary of the Organizing Committee.
He was frequently arrested and imprisoned during the campaign against the pass laws. In 1960, after the Sharpeville Massacre, he was served with a Banishment Order from Alexandra township and fled from South Africa to the United Kingdom.
He was appointed to a research position at the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London. He then studied for a law degree at the University of London, obtained a higher degree in human rights at the University of Kent and researched in planning law at the University of Wales.
He eventually became a Senior Lecturer in Law at Middlesex University in North London, specialising in Jurisprudence.
Despite increasing illness, he last visited South Africa in 2009.
He met and discussed with many anti-apartheid leaders, including Nelson Mandela (African National Congress) and Robert Sobukwe (Pan Africanist Congress).
