Benedict Wallet Vilakazi

South African poet

Benedict Wallet Vilakazi (6 January 1906 – 26 October 1947) was a South African novelist, a descendant of the Zulu royal family, and author of Romantic poetry in the Zulu language.

Vilakazi was also a professor at the University of Witwatersrand, where he became the first Black South African to teach University classes to White South Africans.

In 1946, Vilakazi also became the first Black South African to receive a PhD.Vilakazi Street in Soweto, which is named after the poet, is now very famous as the street where both Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu once lived.

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