Cameron Madikizela graduated from Fort Hare. He was a member of the Cape African Teachers Association (CATA) and the Society of Young Africa (SOYA). He taught at Buntingsville.
When the Bantu Education Department took over African schools, Madikizela, along with 155 members of CATA, was summarily dismissed. He then moved to Johannesburg to complete studies in law.
After the Sharpeville massacre and the state repression that followed, he fled to Botswana where he practised law. However, because of differences with Seretse Khama, the latter handed Madikizela over to the South African Police. Consequently he was imprisoned on Robben Island, from 1968 to 1970.
Upon his release he was prevented by the South African Government from practising as a lawyer in South Africa. Madikizela was then forced to live in the Transkei (Eastern Cape) where he practised law in Flagstaff and Bizana, the home of the Madikizela family.
He remained an outspoken critic of the homelands system even whilst living in the Transkei, under its continuous emergency. Despite the immense repression in the Transkei, Madikizela continued to promote the work of the Unity Movement, an organisation of which he was a member for his entire life.