Chris Nangalembe, a member of the ANC, as well as the Sebokeng Crime Prevention Unit, was a bulwark of his local community. His efforts to eliminate crime in the township, including local gang ‘5-Star', ultimately led to his death.  News of Nangalembe's death sent shock waves throughout Sebokeng.

The community responded a week later on the 12th of January, 1991, with an all-night vigil held in a tent in Sebokeng, where weeping mourners paid final respects to their comrade and community leader.  They were surprised by a sudden invasion by a gang of armed men in and around the overflowing tent which led a hand grenade which was thrown among them, and as it went off the aggressors began to shoot randomly into the crowd. Thirty nine mourners lost their lives that night, and over forty were injured.

The Nangalembe Night Vigil Massacre will go a long way into the books of our history as it heralded an undefined and unresolved period of brutal attacks against the Sebokeng community.
It is in this regard and for this reason that the Executive Mayor of Sedibeng, Cllr. Mahole Simon Mofokeng, in memory of the late Nangalembe victims, invited all people of Sedibeng to the 20th Anniversary of the Nangalembe Massacre.

The commemoration started on the 11th January 2011 with the slaughtering of 5 cows at Zone7 Stadium in Sebokeng. On the dawn of 12th January, a high powered delegation form Sedibeng as well as well as families of the victims, convoyed to the Avalon Cemetery in Soweto to pay their respects at Chris Nangalembe’s grave. 

The procession then travelled to the Evaton Cemetery, where the victims of the Night Vigil Massacre are laid to rest, for a prayer service and to lay wreaths in their remembrance.  The activities then shifted to the Nangalembe Memorial Site in Sebokeng, where the Executive Mayor who led the entourage that comprised of local municipalities Executive Mayors, Council Speakers, Members of Mayoral Committees, Councillors, families of the victims, church leaders, community leaders, political parties and other guests laid wreaths in honour of those who lost their lives.

The formal programme then followed at the Zone 7 Stadium in Sebokeng and was directed by MMC for Sports, Recreation, Arts Culture and Heritage, Cllr. Mluleki Nkosi.

The Executive Mayor said in his address said that: “It was no surprise therefore that this beautiful District was declared the Cradle of Human Rights Struggles by the first President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. The fact that the Anglo-Boer Covenant was signed on the river bank just a stone’s throw from Sebokeng was to set the tone for the resistance which was to characterize the communities of Sedibeng”.

“The Sebokeng Night Vigil Massacre of the 12th January 1991, together with the Boipatong massacre and the Sharpeville shooting, not least the September 03rd Vaal Uprising as well as the Delmas Treason trial and the Sharpeville Six, served to usher in our democracy. The honour of being the Cradle of Human Rights Struggles of South Africa is well deserved”, added the Executive Mayor, Cllr. Mahole Simon Mofokeng.