A THRONG of mourners comprising family members, relatives, acquaintances and erstwhile students of the late great educationist and Orlando Pirates FC chairman, Daniel Donald Dhliwayo, congregated at the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Mondeor in the south of Johannesburg to bid farewell to the nonagenarian on the autumn morning of May 9, 2025.
Affectionately referred to by the moniker “DD” (alluding to his names) and deferentially as Tatane, the erstwhile Leratong Primary School (in Orlando East) headmaster passed on recently at around 11:27pm on May Day at the grand age of 98 – after he had spent about six weeks in Intensive Care Unit at Milpark Hospital whilst being treated for a bout of pneumonia.
Prior to his demise, Dhliwayo had been a resident of the Waverley Gardens Memory Care – a specialized care centre for residents living with Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease – in Johannesburg, where his family had momentarily relocated him shortly after his 95th birthday celebration in Pimville during the Covid-19 period in 2021.
Addressing the gathering, Dhliwayo’s youngest son, Kutlwano said, “The goal was to see him reach 100 – but we missed it,” in alluding to the fact that his father’s passing had pre-empted the family’s hoped for celebration of what could had been his centenary in 2026.
The 39-year-old also thanked the Orlando Pirates family for a special tribute it initiated in his honour. (Such is the recognition of Dhliwayo’s past involvement in local professional football – which included sourcing sponsorships for Orlando Pirates FC – that subsequent to his passing, the Premier Soccer League issued a statement in which it extended its condolences, as well as a notice that a moment of silence would be observed in his honour at all its fixtures during the week.)
One of the congregants present to gesture their final respects, Vusi Kaunda, a mentee from
Dhliwayo’s years’ as an overseer of the YMCA in Orlando East, mused at wisecracks the exceptional mentor used to regale him and fellow youth leaders, such as: “excuse is a modified form of a lie”; and “excitement is a modified form of madness.”
A long-serving librarian at the United States’ Rosa Parks Library & Innovation Studio in White City, Kaunda added: “he was a man who insisted on excellence, discipline and progress in leadership. He was above racial arguments.”
Erstwhile Leratong Primary School colleague and seasoned journalist, Phil Molefe shared anecdotes of his association with Dhliwayo which harked back to the moment the latter ensured that a then Wilberforce Institute alumni from Sharpeville such as himself got employed in Soweto by instructing a school secretary that: “this is Phil Molefe, add him on my staff.” Describing him as a leader who wasn’t led, as well as having produced a world of educationists, academics, sportspeople, et cetera – Molefe concluded by addressing him in absentia thus: “DD, you are my father!”
After a three-hour church service, a lengthy cortège meandered its way to the Nasrec Memorial Park Cemetery where the patriarch was laid to rest.
About “DD” Tatane, who had been born into a poor family in Musina, Limpopo, travelled a long way from selling fat cakes to coal miners in Musina, to later evolving into one of the innovative educationists South Africa has ever produced. He would be quoted in the press as reasoning that losing his father to silicosis of the lungs whilst aged 11 served to motivate him to alter his hardscrabble domestic situation – which he mitigated by becoming a teacher.
Having matriculated at Madibane High School and trained at Lemana Teachers Training College at Elim in the then Northern Transvaal – Dhliwayo would dedicate 45 years of his life as a teacher, principal and inspector, until his retirement in the late 1990s.
Later on, he established the affordable private school brand, DD Dhliwayo Primary School and DD Dhliwayo Senior Primary School, in Soweto – with satellites in Orange Farm, Kagiso and Vosloorus – which accorded black pupils quality education throughout the 1990s to the 2000s.
Such was Dhliwayo’s devotion towards the advancement of black children that together with fellow teacher Thamsanqa W Kambule, he’d establish the Rand Bursary Fund.
Recalling his initial struggles, Dhliwayo mentioned that upon completion of his teacher’s course, he had boarded a train which ended in a Joburg unfamiliar to him, and at which he braved the lack of food and shelter until he would secure a job whose salary was garnished towards the settling of school fees he owed.
Of his first employment, he mentioned teaching whilst wearing patched pants for a considerable while before he could afford to purchase himself a decent suit.
During his teaching years, Dhliwayo deemed literature and writing as important for the education of the black child.
Unique in approach, he implemented innovative methodology in his teaching to assist his students to communicate and write better. “I used to emphasise clean and neat handwriting because some pupils would be condemned because of it.”
Considered among the good old stock of teachers who included Kambule, Aggrey Mbathane, Washington Mposula, Kaizer Harvey and Curtis Nkondo in his heydays – Dhliwayo also delved into football, which resulted in him ascending to the chairmanship of Orlando Pirates FC in the 1970s after his predecessor, Mposula had been shot and killed in his house.
According to Orlando East historian, Vuka Tshabalala, when Dhliwayo succeeded Mposula as chairman of the club, the general sweep of sentiment at the time was that he was a brave man. (An image limning a younger Dhliwayo appearing resplendent in a black club blazer, matching polka-dot tie and pocket square and eyewear whilst posing for a photograph next to a BP Top 8 Cup trophy placed on a bench along the Orlando Stadium touchline adorns the dining room wall of his Pimville house as a souvenir of his stint at the outfit.)
“Pirates at the time were a community team, so a chairperson was chosen by the community.
People saw that I led my life by example and the teachers were regarded in high esteem as people who could lead the community,” Dhliwayo was quoted as opining. Pending his tenure, he’d turn the club into one of South Africa’s giants, including mentoring legends such as Jomo Sono.
Dhliwayo is survived by his wife Thokozile, eight children (of an initial 14), 53 grandchildren, as well as numerous great-grandchildren.
All images Jacob MAWELA (DD Dhliwayo – the visage of a nonagenarian; a community leader and administrator par excellence).
