C. S. Mabaso was born and educated in Natal and worked at various times as a teacher, a shopkeeper, and a clerk. For about 20 years he also was the secretary and bookkeeper of Abantu-Batho, the African National Congress (ANC) newspaper. He was a member of the Transvaal Native Organisation before the founding of the ANC in 1912 and took a leading part in raising funds for the 1914 ANC deputation to Britain.

Born in 1906, Mafora was a domestic servant and a gardener. He was President of the African National Congress (ANC) in the Orange Free State and ex-officio member of the ANC national executive committee from 1952 to 1958. From December 1956 until charges were dropped against him in December 1957, he was one of the accused in the Treason Trial. His wife Ivy headed the Free State ANC Women's League.

Little is known of his background except that he spoke Xhosa. When Clements Kadalie began to build the Industrial Commercial Workers Union (ICU) in Natal in 1924, he appointed Maduna provincial secretary on the recommendation of J. T. Gumede. A. W. G.

Tholakele Madala was born in Kokstad on 13 July 1937. He matriculated at St John's College in Umtata before obtaining a BA degree at the University of Fort Hare.

He taught at the Lovedale Institute in Alice, and in Swaziland before enrolling for a law degree at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg in 1972. Here he helped to set up the first legal-aid clinic on the campus to give poor people access to legal assistance.

Mpush Makambi was born in 1967 in Mdantsane, Eastern Cape. At school, Makambi was sporty but boxing was his first love. He turned professional in 1983 with a fight against Xolile Nano and won it comfortably. However, being a disgruntled young man with the apartheid system he placed his boxing career on hold in favour of politics. In the late mid-1980s he joined the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and was deployed in its military wing Azanian People's Liberation Army (Apla).

One of the group of African medical students at the University of the Witwatersrand who participated in the founding of the African National Congress Youth League. Chosen provisional secretary of the League in 1944, he later relinquished the post under pressure of work. He established a medical practice in King William's Town in 1948 but was killed a year later in an automobile accident.

Born in 1914 Makgofe was a labourer. He joined the African National Congress in 1938 and was active in the 1946 African miners' strike.

Born in 1933 into a prominent Transkei family Makiwane completed his secondary schooling at Lovedale in 1950 and entered Fort Hare University. Politicised during his high school days, he became active in the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) at Fort Hare, and following a demonstration at the College in 1954, he was expelled.

Born in 1913, Manana was a businessman. He played a leading role in campaigns against higher rentals and passes in Durban.

Self Mampuru was born in 1908 into the leading family of chiefs of Sekhukhuneland. In the 1930s in Johannesburg he met William Ballinger, who helped him go to Britain where he studied the management of cooperatives at Manchester from 1937 to 1939. He was unsuccessful in organising cooperatives on his return to South Africa.