Lillian Ngoyi (born 1911) was known as "the mother of the black resistance" in South Africa. She served as president of the women's league of the African National Congress. The South African government declared her a "banned person" in the mid-1960s. This meant that her movements and contacts were restricted and she could not be quoted in the press. Ngoyi lived under the banning order for 16 years.

Lillian Masediba Ngoyi was born on September 24, 1911 in the city of Pretoria to Isaac Mmankhatteng and Annie Modipadi Matabane. A Bapedi from Sekhukhuneland, her father worked in a platinum mine. Educated at the Kilnerton Institution in the mid-1920s, Nogyi's dreams of becoming a teacher were dashed when she was forced to leave school in order to help support her family. She worked as a nurse in the City Mine Hospital from 1928 to 1930. In 1934, she married John Ngoyi, a van driver...