Anti-apartheid fighters that made a difference
Here are some famous anti-apartheid figures who wrote the history of resistance.
In light of Anti-Racism week this week, we look at some remarkable South Africans who joined the fight against apartheid.
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Steve Biko
Steve Biko was a South African anti-apartheid activist.
Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he was at the forefront of an anti-apartheid campaign known as the Black Consciousness Movement during the late 1960s and 1970s.
On 12 September 1977 he died sadly due to brain injury which had centralised blood circulation in his body.
He was severely beaten and viciously manhandled by police after being arrested the previous month.
Chris Hani
Born Martin Thembisile Hani, he led the SA Communist Party and was chief of staff of Umkhonto weSizwe, the armed wing of the ANC.
He was a fierce opponent of the apartheid government, and was assassinated on 10 April 1993 outside his home in Dawn Park, Boksburg.
He was accosted by a Polish far-right anti-communist immigrant named Janusz Walus, who shot him in the head and back as he stepped out of his car.
Walus had borrowed the pistol from Clive Derby-Lewis, a senior Conservative Party MP and Shadow Minister for Economic Affairs.
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Pregs Govender
Pregs (or Pregaluxmi) Govender, born 15 February 1960, is a feminist human rights activist, author and former ANC MP.
Govender became an anti-apartheid activist in 1974, at the age of 14.
While at high school, she raised money for political detainees.
A few years later, she publicly confronted apartheid police, “charging into the guns and batons”.
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Ahmed Mohamed Kathrada
Ahmed Mohamed Kathrada was born 21 August 1929, and is a politician and former political prisoner and anti-apartheid activist.
Kathrada’s involvement in the anti-apartheid activities of the ANC led him to his long-term imprisonment on Robben Island and Pollsmoor Prison.
Following his release in 1990, he was elected ANC MP.
Robert McBride
During the apartheid era McBride was a member of Umkhonto weSizwe and was convicted of terrorism after he bombed a busy night club which killed three women and injured 69 others.
In February 2014 he was appointed director of police watchdog, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate.
In March 2015 he was suspended from this position by the Minister of Police.
The decision was set aside by the Constitutional Court in September last year.
Lilian Ngoyi
Lillian Masediba Matabane Ngoyi was born on 25 September 1911 and died on 13 March 1980.
The anti-apartheid activist was the first woman elected to the executive committee of the ANC, and helped launch the Federation of SA Women.
On 9 August 1956, Ngoyi led a march along with Helen Joseph, Rahima Moosa, Sophia Williams-De Bruyn, Motlalepula Chabaku, Bertha Gxowa and Albertina Sisulu of 20 000 women to the Union Buildings in protest against the apartheid government requiring women to carry passbooks as part of the pass laws.
Walter Sisulu
Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu was born on 18 May 1912 and died on 5 May 2003.
Sisulu was an anti-apartheid activist and member of the ANC, serving at times as secretary-general and deputy president of the organisation.
He was jailed on Robben Island, where he served more than 25 years.
In October 1989, he was released after 26 years in prison, and in July 1991 was elected ANC deputy president at the ANC’s first national conference after its unbanning the year before.
He remained in the position until after South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994.
Oliver Tambo
Oliver Reginald Tambo was born on 27 October 1917 and died on 24 April 1993.
He was an anti-apartheid politician and revolutionary who served as president of the ANC from 1967 to 1991.
Tambo suffered a stroke in 1993, aged 75, a few days after Chris Hani’s assassination.
He died only months before the 1994 general election in which Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa.
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