SAHO global search

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

1850-1912

Henrietta Rebecca Stakesby Lewis

Henrietta (Ettie or Het) Rebecca Stakesby Lewis was born in 1850 at the Umpukani Mission Station, Orange Free State (now Free State Province), and grew up in…

B-0150475

1908-1966

Arthur Nuthall Fula

Arthur Nuthall Fula was born on 16 May 1908 in East London, Transkei (now Eastern Cape Province). In 1910, his parents – Samuel and Alice (née Stuurman) Fula –…

B-0150302

1957-1998

Simon Nkoli

“If you are Black and gay in South Africa, then it really is all the same closet…inside is darkness and oppression. Outside is freedom.”— Simon Tseko…

B-0150068

1966

Fred Khumalo

Fred Khumalo was born on 4 August 1966 in Chesterville, Durban, Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal), and grew up in Mpumalanga Township close to the industrial area of…

B-0149713

Randolph Vigne

B-0149528

1985

Sipho Mutsi

  Sipho 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 connection…

B-0149414

1926-1933

Nellie Jibiliza

Nellie Jibiliza was born in 1926 to parents who were African National Congress (ANC) activists in Cape Town. Thus, she grew up in a politically active…

B-0149242

1867-1942

Thomas Benjamin Davis

Thomas Benjamin Frederick Davis, the son of Thomas Leipold, a fisherman, and Jemima Davis was born in April 1867 in Jersey, Channel Islands, a British Crown…

B-0148819

Tom Walters

B-0148742

David Welsh

B-0148741

Ernest “Ernie” Wenzel

B-0148740

Barney Zackon

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