Known by his supporters as “Lion of Azania”, Mothopeng was a teacher, intellectual, political prisoner and stalwart of the Pan–African Congress (PAC). His political activism spanned a turbulent half-century of resistance to white domination, from the early 1940s until his death in 1990. Much of his political and personal life centred around his home which he shared with his wife Urbania from 1941, in an area that  became a hot bed of struggle.