Stephanie Kemp was born in the Karoo in 1941 and grew up with her two sisters in Malmesbury in the Swartland. The town was dominated by the Dutch Reformed Church, and therefore her upbringing was dominated by Afrikaans traditions.

Alpheus Madaba Madiba born in 1901, in Nzhelele in the northern Transvaal, into a Venda peasant family.He emigrated to Johannesburg when he was 17 and found work in a factory in the 1920s. he enrolled in classes at a Communist-run night school. He joined the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) in 1936 and from 1939 to 1950 served 11 years on its Johannesburg district committee.

Ambrose Makiwane was born in 29th of November in1921 near Cala in the Transkei. He attended Clarkebury School and was expelled after participating in a student strike. The son of two teachers, who also farmed.his parents could not afford to send him to university after he finished school delayed his enrollment.Makiwane got involved in politics and the labour movement after finishing high school but before enrolling at the University of Fort Hare.

John Marinus Ferus (Hennie Ferus), an uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) soldier, was born on 8 February 1940. He joined the South African Coloured Peoples Congress (SACPO) at the age of 19. In 1962 he was detained under the 90 day detention law, which was renewed three times. In 1964 he was charged with sabotage.

Hassim Seedat, was born in Newcastle, Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal), in 1930. His family came to Newcastle as traders in the late 1880s. He attended St Oswalds High School in Newcastle and Sastri College, Durban where he matriculated in 1947.

Herbert Mabuza was an outstanding photographer, who was promoted to the position of managing editor at the Sunday Times and later to the same position at the Sowetan and Sunday World.

Mabuza was for a very short period a member of the photographic collective Afrapix.

After leaving journalism in 2015, he became an emerging cattle farmer.

Herbert Mabuza passed away on 2 June 2019 in Johannesburg, Gauteng.

Moosa “Mosie” Moolla was born in the small, (then) western Transvaal town of Christiana on 12 June 1934 where his father ran a successful import-export business. The family was forced to relocate to Bloemhof, a nearby town, following the Great Depression of the 1930s. Mosie did his primary schooling in Bloemhof. Since there were no high schools catering for blacks, Mosie was forced to move to Johannesburg in 1949 to pursue his secondary education. 

Elizabeth Mafekeng was born in 1918 in Tarkastad and attended school until Standard 7. Living conditions in her birthplace forced her to leave for Paarl in Cape Town in early 1930s. Mafekeng left school at the age of 15 to support the family.

Josias Ratshilumela Madzunya was born in the Sibasa area of the northern Transvaal in about 1909, a member of the Venda tribe,the son of a polygamous Venda-speaking peasant farmer near Thohoyandou in the northern Transvaal,Madzunya came to Johannesburg in 1931, eventually establishing himself as a peddler.