Khoisan Khoisan X

Background

Bennett Alexander was the third child of Estelle and Johann Alexander, a labourer in Kimberley, the city where he grew up.

Career

He matriculated from the William Pescod High School, Kimberley, in 1975. Following initial employment with the South African government Department of Manpower, until 1981, Alexander served for a year on a Christian youth team which travelled around Zimbabwe and South Africa, before he moved to Johannesburg where he worked for a pharmaceutical company. At this time Alexander helped to form the Black Health and Allied Workers Union of South Africa, serving as a senior shop steward and vice-chairperson of the local shop stewards’ committee.

He also chaired the union’s national advisory committee.

From 1986 he took up full-time employment with the South African Black Municipal and Allied Workers Union, an affiliate of the National Council of Trade Unions (Nactu). In 1989 Alexander became person aide to Zeph Mothopong, President of the Pan-Africanist Congress, following his release from Robben Island.

On his return later that year Alexander was a founding member and elected as first General Secretary of the Pan-Africanist Movement, a legal front for the Public Affairs Committee. He was elected to the same position at the Public Affairs Committee"s first congress after its unbanning in 1990. He stepped down as Secretary General in 1994.

He legally changed his name from Benny Alexander to Khoisan X, and acted as adviser to Adam Kok V, a Griqua leader in the Northern Cape.

He also pursued business interests related to tourism. In 2008 he was part of an attempt to form a Public Affairs Committee splinter group - the Bloemfontein High Court however forbade the group from using the Public Affairs Committee"s colours or name. Khoisan X died of a stroke in Johannesburg.

He was buried in Kimberley on 23 October 2010.

A street in Galeshewe, Kimberley, "Benny Alexander Avenue", is named in his honour.

Achievements

• Alexander withdrew from politics in 1996/7, to focus on his studies, non-governmental organization and civic structures, and to build black empowerment structures, becoming a champion for indigenous interests, referring to his San and Griqua roots.

Membership

X was, for a time, a member of the new formed Gauteng Provincial Legislature, and chaired a committee that decided on the name Gauteng for the province at the time called the PWV Province (Pretoria, Witwatersrand, Vaal Triangle).