Like all other Black ethnic groups, the Coloureds also fell victim to segregation and repressive legislations enacted by Colonial and successive governments since shortly after the founding of the Cape of Good Hope, Natal and the Boer Republics. The National Party (NP), after its ascendance to power in 1948, radicalised it, however. These legislations took away some of the privileges enjoyed by Coloureds prior to the introduction and institutionalisation of the Apartheid policy by the NP.

South Africans went to the polls on 8 May 2019 in a general election considered the most important since the dawn of democracy in 1994. The ruling African National Congress (ANC), which won the election, was in the run-up to the poll unsure of whether it would once again secure a majority after a decade of misrule by Jacob Zuma.

The Azania Liberation Support Committee (ALSC) was formed in London around 1983 by Roseinnes Phahle and other individuals of various broadly leftist political tendencies. The ALSC launched Azania Worker and Azania Frontline as publications that were part of the South African liberation movement but independent of any political organization. Many of the ALSC members had been involved with the exiled Black Consciousness Movement of Azania.

South Africa’s advent to democracy was ushered through the 1993 Interim Constitution, drawn up through negotiations among various political parties, culminating in the country’s first non-racial election in 1994.

All legally eligible South Africans were able to cast their vote for the first time on 27 April 1994 to mark the end of apartheid rule and establish a new Constitutional order.

This year, 2014, marks 20 years of democracy in South Africa, coinciding with the fifth national elections as a democratic country.

Albertina Sisulu during the Rivonia Trial.

Adelaide Frances Tambo (1929 - 2007)

Miriam Makeba, performs at the Africa Festival in Delft, the Netherlands on 4th August 1990. 

Image: Frans Schellekens/Redferns via Getty Images

Phyllis Naidoo was born in Estcourt, Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal) on the 5 January 1928

Miriam Makeba was born in March 4th,in 1932 Johannesburg , during a time of economic depression.

Chris Hani, early 1990's