One of the Memory Boxes in the Red Location Museum is dedicated to Vuyisile Mini, one of the first African National Congress members to be executed by apartheid South Africa. The space contains three nooses representing those that he was hung on along with Wilson Khayinga and Zinakile Mkaba.
Vuyisile Mini was born in 1920 in the Port Elizabeth. Mini's militant political activities began in 1951 when he joined the ANC. In 1952 he was jailed with Govan Mbeki and Raymond Mhlaba for three months in North End Prison for participation in theDefiance Campaigm. In 1961 Mini was one of the first group of people to be recruited into uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), and become a member of the Eastern Cape High Command. He was arrested on 10 May 1963 together with two other prominent ANC members, Wilson Khayinga and Zinakile Mkaba, charged with 17 counts of sabotage and other political crimes including complicity in the death of Sipho Mange, an alleged police informer and sentenced to death. Mini, Khayinga and Mkaba were hanged in the Pretoria Central Prison on 6 November 1964. Mini went to the gallows singing freedom songs, some he had composed.
Port Elizabeth's Market Square in front of City Hall was renamed Vuyisile Mini Square a couple of years ago.
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