Colleen Lombard – a life of quiet bravery

WHEN a comrade reminded me recently, I picked up Colleen Lombard’s book, To the Moon and Back: A Detention Memoir.

- FAIEZ JACOBS

COLLEEN Lombard, anti-apartheid activist and former treason trialist, has died at 75 after a long illness. I ARMAND HOUGH Independent Newspapers

(ARMAND HOUGH Independent Newspapers)

Curious at first, I put it down changed.Some memoirs are loud, filled with slogans, posturing, and the convenient heroism of hindsight. Colleen’s voice is different. It is calm, deliberate, honest. She writes like someone speaking late at night, when the world is quiet and the truth can finally breathe. There is no bitterness. No need for embellishment. Just clarity, pain, and grace.

Colleen chose the hard path. And she walked it with dignity.

Born in Wynberg in 1950, she did not grow up around dramatic political theory or revolutionary seminar rooms. She came from the everyday world of school halls, church pews, and union offices. Her entry into activism wasn’t theatrical. It was practical. She saw injustice and decided to do something about it. That was her nature: simple, direct, courageous.