![]() ![]() The Nationalist government saw him as a dangerous subversive, but in his local community he was revered as someone standing up to apartheid. In 1948 he became an organiser for the United Party in the election won by the Nationalists. This he did and became a prominent and controversial politician. In 1945 he married Helene – the union producing seven children -and settled in Kimberley where he was to take an active part in politics, and in particular, fighting to better the life of the coloured people in the town. Thus, after the war, he promised to himself, he would enter politics in order to fight injustice. The attitude of the white soldiers made him bitter because he felt it was his duty not to allow any system (like the Nazi system) to come near his country South Africa. He was then seconded to the Demobilisation Corps. He was transferred to Kimberley as RSM at the Corps Training Depot and was there when the war ended in 1945, specialising in artillery and the training thereof. While he was a Private in the Army Educational Services he applied to follow a NCO course at the Khartoum Military College but was turned down because only whites could attend the college. He saw active service with the Cape Corps and the 6th Armoured Division in East Africa, North Africa and Italy and was frequently mentioned in dispatches, reaching the rank of Regimental Sergeant-Major, at the time the highest rank a soldier “of colour” could attain. His father being a cabinet maker with his own business saw Sonny work in the furniture factory up until World War II when he signed up to fight against Germany, enlisting in South Africa’s oldest colonial regiment, the Cape Corps. Lionel Samuel (Sonny) Leon (29 November 1911- 31 July 1990) was born in Ferreirastown, Johannesburg to an Anglo-Asian father and a Javanese descendant mother. 31 July 1897, First competition for the Rhodes Challenge Cup at the Kimberley Golf Club.ģ1 July 1901, Foundation stone of the new Jewish Synagogue laid by Gustav Bonas.ģ1 July 1908, Mining of blue ground in the De Beers Mine suspended.ģ1 July 1990, Sonny Leon, pictured, prominent Coloured politician, dies. ![]()
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