SAHO global search

Jomo Kenyatta

Jomo Kenyatta was born Kamau to parents Moigoi and Wamboi ”” his father was the chief of a small agricultural village in Gatundu Division, Kiambu District ””…

B-0099749

1934-2011

Professor Kader Abdul Asmal

Kader Abdul Asmal was born on 8th of October in 1934, in the small rural town of Stanger, KwaZulu Natal (then Natal). Young Asmal was raised in a vibrant,…

B-0007798

1953-1982

Dr. Neil Hudson Aggett

Neil Hudson Aggett was born in Nanyuki, Kenya on 6th October 1953, the first-born child of Aubrey and Joy Aggett. He began his schooling in Kenya, and when his…

B-0007775

1795-1875

Abraham Faure

Abraham Faure was born on 29 August 1795 in Stellenbosch. Faure was one of the leading personalities of his tune in church and intellectual circles at the Cape…

B-0007766

Daniel Monkgotla

B-0076106

1967-1985

Sipho Philip Mutsi

Sipho Philip Mutsi died in 1985 at the Odendaalrus police station, he was the youngest detainee to die in police custody at age 17. He was arrested with…

B-0075593

Jack Tarshish

B-0075535

1956

Richard Steele

Richard Steele was born to a Scottish father and a South African mother, in Pretoria, in 1956. His father emigrated to South Africa at the end of the Second…

B-0074123

1922-2010

Eulalie Doreen Stott

Eulalie Doreen Stott was born in Fish Hoek on 4 August 1922. Stott was the only child and after her parents’ divorce, when she was just three years old, she…

B-0074109

1950

Jacob Sello (Jackie) Selebi

Jacob (Jackie) Sello Selebi was born on 7 March 1950 in Johannesburg.  Selebi was the African National Congress (ANC) representative to the Soviet Union's…

B-0073823

1917-1998

Winnie Motlalepule Kgware

Winnie  Motlalepule Kgware was born in Thaba Nchu in the Free State on the 27th of October in 1917.  A teacher by profession, and resident at the University of…

B-0070046

1944

Mongane Wally Serote

Mongane Wally Serote was born in Sophiatown, Johannesburg on 8 May 1944, just four years before the National Party (NP) came to power in South Africa. His…

B-0068945

1932-2007

Sydney Sipho Sepamla

Sydney Sipho Sepamla spent most of his life in Soweto, the enormous township southwest of Johannesburg. Sepamla has been grouped with poets like Oswald Mtshali…

B-0068943

1928-2009

Curtis Nkondo

Curtis Nkondo was born on 1st February 1928 in Louis Trichardt, Northern Transvaal (now Makhado, Limpopo). Towards the end of the 1800s, his grandmother, Ma…

B-0068743

1903-1966

Edward “Eddie” Roux

Edward Roux was born in the northern Transvaal in 1903, the son of an English mother and. an Afrikaner father. He grew up in Johannesburg, where his father…

B-0068388

1947

Dr Mamphela Aletta Ramphele

Mamphela Ramphele was born on 28 December 1947 in Bochum District, Northern Transvaal (now Limpopo). Her mother, Rangoato Rahab, and her father, Pitsi Eliphaz…

B-0068381

1950

Martin Plaut

Martin Plaut was born in Cape Town, South Africa in May 1950.  His parents were Erwin Plaut and Faith Plaut. His father was a furniture designer who had a shop…

B-0068305

1922

George Edward Peake

George Edward Peake was a founding member and national Chairperson of the South African Coloured People's Organisation (SACPO) in the 1960s. He was born in the…

B-0068302

1922

Thomas Titus Nkobi

Thomas Titus Nkobi was born in 1922, the son of a taxi driver, he grew up in Johannesburg. Member of the national executive committee of the African National…

B-0068266

1790-1868

King Mzilikazi

Mzilikazi (meaning The Great Road), was a Southern African king who founded the Matabele kingdom (Mthwakazi), Matabeleland, in what became Rhodesia and is now…

B-0068162

1903-1988

Alan Stewart Paton

Alan Stewart Paton was born in Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu Natal on 11 January 1903. His father, James Paton, a Scottish immigrant and civil servant, came to…

B-0067897

1888-1942

Ruth Alexander

Ruth Alexander was the daughter of a well-known Hebrew scholar, Solomon Schechter. She was educated at schools in Cambridge, England and New York, United…

B-0066410

Bruno Mtolo

B-0066330

1904-1983

Alex Hepple

Alex Hepple was born in the Johannesburg suburb of La Rochelle on 28 August 1904. His father, Thomas Hepple (1869-1942), an immigrant from Sunderland, was a…

B-0066278

1934-2002

Jonas Malheiro Savimbi

Jonas Malheiro Savimbi was born in Munhango, Moxico Province in eastern Angola on 3 August 1934.  Savimbi's primary education took place at Protestant mission…

B-0151989

1928-2007

Rebecca Makgomo Masilela (nee Kekana)

Affectionately known as ‘Magogo’ (meaning grandmother – a title bestowed to her for her motherly, nurturing character), Rebecca Makgomo Masilela (nee Kekana)…

B-0150936

1909-2002

Leslie Rubin

The son of a rabbi, Leslie Rubin was born on 5 August 1909 in District Six, Cape Town, Cape Province (now Western Cape), then a multiracial district of the…

B-0150903

1953

Diana Ferrus

Internationally renowned South African poet, writer, and activist for marginalised groups, Diana Ferrus, was born on 29 August 1953 in Worcester, Cape Province…

B-0150858

1932

Irene Menell (nee Manderstam)

Born in 1932, Irene Menell (nee Manderstam) spent her early life moving from one place to the next, completing her primary and secondary schooling in the…

B-0150806

5 June1958-2021

Jackson Mphikwa Mthembu

Jackson Mphikwa Mthembu was a Minister in the Presidency of South Africa and parliamentarian for the African National Congress (ANC). Mthembu was born on 5…

B-0150697