Joseph Albert Mashite Mokoena was born in 25 November 1919 in Johannesburg, he was educated at St. Peter's Secondary School, where he matriculated in 1938, setting academic records. In 1941 he graduated from Fort Hare with distinction in mathematics and physics and thereafter received, between 1944 and 1959, an M.S. from the University of South Africa, and an honor's B.A. and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of the Witwatersrand. While a student in Johannesburg, he was elected to the first executive committee of the Youth League in September 1944. At the Bloemfontein conference of December 1949 he was elected to the national executive of the African National Congress(ANC), though he did not take an active part in politics. From 1945 to 1957 he was a lecturer at Fort Hare; thereafter he taught at universities in Ghana, Nigeria, England, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and Zambia. He died from injuries suffered in a car accident in Zambia in February in 1969.