The celebrated Tuli was a South African professional fly, bantam and featherweight boxer. He was the first black South African to hold a British Empire championship title after beating Teddy Gardner in 1952 in the flyweight category.
He also held the Transvaal (‘non-white’) flyweight title, South African (‘non-white’) bantamweight title, South African (‘non-white’) flyweight title and was challenger for the British Empire bantamweight title against Peter Keenan, who recalled: ''Jake Tuli was quite simply the toughest guy I ever met in a boxing ring…”
For Nelson Mandela, himself a boxer, Tuli was “our greatest hero”. In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela wrote: “[Tuli] was the most eloquent example of what African boxers could achieve if given the opportunity.”
Last Sunday, Tuli was honoured with the unveiling of the plaque at the Noordgesig home where he lived with his family after their return from England in 1958. He would remain a resident of Noordgesig, established as a coloured township in 1940, until his death in 1998.
The unveiling was attended by members of the Tuli family and other dignitaries – some of whom were coached by him as aspirant boxers.
Ntuli was born in Johannesburg on July 7, 1929. He grew up in central Johannesburg, but during the relocations of the 1930s his family had to move to Orlando East. There he attended school at St. Mary’s Primary School. It was at the St. Mary’s Boys Club – and later the Orlando Proper Boxing Club – that he started sparring.
At Orlando High he met his future wife, Peggy Lamont. They had four children: Veronica, John, James and Alan. Tuli finished schooling at the famous St. Peter’s School in Rosettenville.
