Professor Colin Gardner was born on 26 June 1933, in London, Britain. He came to South Africa with his parents in 1947. He matriculated at Maritzburg College, Pietermaritzburg, Natal (now kwaZulu-Natal - KZN).  After graduating from Natal University (now University of kwaZulu-Natal - UKZN), he went to Oxford University, England as a Rhodes scholar.

Mxolisi “Bra Ace” Mgxashe was born in 1944. He joined the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) in Cape Town in the 1960s and took part in the march, in Cape Town’s Langa Township on 21 March 1960, where the police shot and killed three people and many others were wounded.

Mlungiseleli Velaphi (MK name Mzimkulu Goduka) was born in Mdantsane, Eastern Cape in 1967 was a United Democratic Front (UDF) member.  He left South Africa in 1985 to join the African National Congress (ANC) and mKhonto we Sizwe (MK), the military wing of the ANC.  After receiving his basic military training in Angola, he spent a year in Cuba undergoing Special Forces training with specialisation in rural guerrilla warfare.

Vuyani Goniwe, also known as Jorissen (his MK name), from Ntselamanzi Location, Alice in the Eastern Cape, left South Africa in 1977 together with Bandile Ketelo and Mgcini Mali to join the African National Congress’s (ANC) military wing, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK).

In 1849, Cape Town lived up to its reputation for giving visiting vessels a rousing reception. But this was a reception with a difference; it was in fact a boycott. The colonists were not going to allow the Cape to be used as a penal settlement, and so strong was the agitation that the Irish convict settlers “on board the Neptune were not allowed to land. The authorities tried to secure meat and vegetables for the vessel, but merchants refused to co-operate either from principle or fear.

Rabia “Choti” Motala was born in Kokstad, Natal (now kwaZulu-Natal) in 1932. She completed her primary schooling in Kokstad at the local Coloured school but her conservative father did not allow her to attend high school.  Choti remained at home, helping in the family shop, did dress-making, but the urge to study was always there and she read profusely.

Billy Masetlha was born on 21 November 1954 in Alexandra, Johannesburg, Transvaal (now Gauteng). He is a founder member of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) and participated in the formation of the Azanian Student's Organisation (AZASO) in 1979. Prior to that, he was a member Soweto Student's Representative Council in 1976.

Pumzile Mayapi was born on 8 September 1956 in Willowvale, Eastern Cape. He joined the African National Congress (ANC) in June 1980 when he was still a student at Fort Hare University.

In the 1970s, Petrus Nyawose worked as a bouncer at The Paradise, a popular nightclub in Durban. Nyawose spent most of his working hours at the offices of the Black Allied Workers Union (BAWU), where he chaired the workers’ committee that managed the Durban BAWU branch but it was his wife Jabulile who was the real unionist.

John Jack Masinga was a student at Duduza Sibonelo Secondary school when the 1976 Uprisings started. Masinga, Felix Mpeka and Duncan Mahlangu formed a student movement at the high school they were attending at the time. All three of them were arrested later that year and sent to Robben Island prison.