Peter Moonsammy was born on 25 March 1928 in Market St, Johannesburg. Moonsamy was  the elder brother of Paul and Dasu Joseph who were Transvaal Indian Congress activists. After his father died, Moonsamy went to work as a bellboy to help support a family of eleven siblings at the age of fourteen.

Allan Kirkland Soga was among the founding members of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1912, he was the youngest son of Tiyo Soga, the first African in South Africa to be ordained a minister. His mother was a Scot, and he was educated in the Cape and in Scotland, receiving sufficient legal education to be appointed a magistrate. Later dismissed from this position, he was employed at other times as a labour bureau agent and a road inspector in the Transkei.

Born in 1936, Theophilus Kgosikobo Musi was a clerk. He taught for a while in a primary school but then had to find employment in Johannesburg to support seven orphaned brothers and sisters.

Black business pioneer, community leader, altruistic medical practitioner, involved in several education initiatives, former secretary-general of the ANC Youth League, multimillionaire. In the first part of his long life, Dr Motlana played a central role in the internal resistance that led to the liberation of South Africa, and then co-founded and built up the black empowerment company New Africa Investments (Nail), with a market capitalisation of over R10 billion and profits exceeding R300 million by 1999.