Early life
Khaya Biko was born in Queenstown in the Eastern Cape in 1944, the second of four children of Mzingaye Biko, a police officer and later a clerk, and Alice "MamCethe" Biko. The family settled in Ginsberg township near King William's Town. Mzingaye died in 1950, and MamCethe raised the children alone on her wages as a domestic worker and hospital cook.
Khaya was well-read and drawn to newspapers. He reported for the school paper at Forbes Grant School and started a local rugby club, the Sea Lions, which later became the Star of Hope club. Through the King William's Town area, which had a strong Pan Africanist presence, he became involved with the local branch of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC).
Lovedale and the 1963 arrest
Khaya enrolled at Lovedale College, where he was active as both an athlete and a student activist. In 1963 his younger brother Steve joined him at the school. That year, police came to Lovedale to arrest Khaya on suspicion of involvement with Poqo, the PAC's armed wing, and took both brothers to King William's Town. Khaya was charged. According to South African History Online's biography of Steve Biko, he was sentenced to two years, with fifteen months suspended, and served his term at Fort Glamorgan prison near East London. (Some accounts state he was convicted and later acquitted on appeal.)
Steve, against whom no evidence was presented, was nonetheless expelled and barred from government schools. The injustice marked the beginning of Steve's resentment of state authority. Khaya later described its effect on his brother: "In 1963 they expelled him from school for doing nothing. It was then that the great giant was awakened."
Later life
Barred from school after his release, Khaya worked as a clerk for a law firm. Concerned for his brother's education, he wrote to schools and secured Steve a place at St Francis College in Mariannhill. [Further verified detail on Khaya's later life is limited in the available record.]
