Drive through the M9 Road in Pretoria one day, where Rigel North merges into the M9 Avenue which then leads you to Justice Mahomed Road on the M11 and literally take a brief moment through history on the woman who the Avenue is now renamed after.

Florence Barbara Ribeiro was born on the 3rd November 1933 and was a community worker and teacher. She started school in Alexandra and went on to complete her higher grade studies at Kwamashu, Natal. It was in Natal where she met her future husband, Fabian Ribeiro, who was a medical student at the time. Florence Completed her teacher’s diploma at Marian Hill in 1953 but left the teaching profession in 1957 to focus more on business after she got married.

The pair lived in Natal, then Welkom In the Free State where Ribeiro’s husband opened a medical practice in 1958. They then settled in Mamelodi, Pretoria in the early 1960s.

Florence opened a butchery business and enrolled for a BCom while raising her four children. Ribeiro was very sensitive towards people who suffered under the apartheid regime and was intensely committed to the struggle for liberation. Her mother, Kate Mathe, was arrested countless times for raising Florence and her siblings, through selling traditional beer.

Robert Sobukwe married Florence Ribeiro’s sister, Veronica.

Florence and her husband were driving their children to school in Natal and they stopped by a fast-food outlet in Bloemfontein, this was in 1971. Fabian stayed in the car while Florence and the children went in. The owner informed her that they were not allowed to buy from the self-catering section but had to purchase at the rear end of the shop – where black people were served from a tiny window. She refused and went back to the front of the store where she insisted to place her order there to much frustration from the owner and customers gathered.

The police were summoned, Ribeiro and her children were threatened to be locked up for trespassing. She insisted to wait for her order and then proudly marched her family out afterwards.

While staying in Mamelodi, the Ribeiro’s used their home to shelter victims of apartheid. They also funded many promising students. The couple and children suffered because of their commitment to justice. Their home was gutted by fire in February 1986 as a result where Ribeiro’s strength is said to have carried the family through that trauma.

Still after rebuilding, the Ribeiro’s were high on the hit list of their adversaries. The couple was tragically gunned down in the courtyard of their home on the 1st December 1986. In 1997, the TRC found that the Ribeiro’s had been assassinated by agents of the state.

Today, the Dr Fabian and Florence Ribeiro treatment centre in Cullinan is named in their honour and Queen Wilhemina Avenue in Pretoria was renamed to Florence Ribeiro Avenue in 2012.

There are so many silent heroes hidden in most buildings and national features all around us.

Silent Hero last 1 of 4.

#FlorenceRibeiro

Credit to sahistory.org.za