SAHO global search

1938

Noria Mabasa

… She received formal education for only one year, having to walk three hours a day to the nearest school. She carried out household chores … wife, who had…

B-0008349

1953

Jeannette Ndhlovu

… was responsible for recruiting and transporting students to Swaziland to join the ANC and its military wing,  Umkhonto … enrolled at the University of…

B-0008756

Nimrod Boyce Tantsi

… the founders of the AME in South Africa. His family moved a number of times during his youth, first to Natal and then to the Cape, where Tantsi completed his…

B-0068535

1952-2006

Thozamile Richard (Thozi) Gqweta

… was born in Peelton near King Williamstown 1952.The son of a railway worker.He obtained his matric at Mzomhle High School in 1973, after which he worked as…

B-0008919

1963

David Tsolwane Uhuru Hlongwane

… cultivated without formal instruction. Hlongwane worked as a labourer at Rainbow Chicken Farms in Worcester temporarily, quitting due to the racism and…

B-0098953

1969

Lucas Radebe

… When he was 15 years old, his parents sent him away to Bophuthatswana to avoid the violence in the township. … where he joined Leeds United. Despite several…

B-0008926

1895-1962

Elliot Tonjeni

… Tonjeni was born in 1895 in the Transkei and later went to Cape Town, where he joined the  Communist Party of South … National Congress . He left the CPSA in…

B-0068612

1938

Ngugi wa Thiong’o

… Manguu and Kinyogori primary schools before proceeding to Alliance High School. During his education the background … Mau war of independence between 1952…

B-0123171

1931-2011

Isaiah Stein

… Isaiah Stein was born to a Coloured family in Durban in 1931, the son of a pastor and property developer. After both his parents died, … Canon Chivers, C …

B-0064870

1927-2005

Kalushi Drake Koka

… left the LPSA and worked alongside Steve Biko  and became a founding member of the Black Consciousness Movement  (BCM). … student activists. Koka’s house in…

B-0095114

1928-2011

Henry Gordon ‘Squire’ Makgothi

… Henry Gordon "Squire" Makgothi was born on 25 December 1928 to Walter Mokowa, a school teacher and Martha Makgothi, a domestic worker,died when he was five…

B-0064853

1949

Lefifi Tladi

… Transvaal Province (now Gauteng). The township fell victim to apartheid’s forced removals as a so-called Black spot . A Black spot was an area that Black…

B-0122542

1897-1976

Helen Elizabeth Martins

… her childhood growing up in Nieu Bethesda. She went on to obtain a teacher's diploma in nearby Graaff-Reinet and, around that time, married Johannes Pienaar …

B-0008456

1950

Jacob Sello (Jackie) Selebi

… was the African National Congress (ANC) representative to the Soviet Union's World Federation of Democratic Youth in … Africa’s Ambassador to the United…

B-0073823

1920-1973

Robert M. Resha

… eight years of formal school and in his late teens went to work as a miner on the Reef. After several years, he was dismissed as a troublemaker and he took…

B-0008948

1916-1965

Dr Arthur Elias Letele

… 1915 in Maseru, Lesotho. His father, Elias Letele, was a school inspector. His mother, Catherine, was of Xhosa decent. The Letele family immigrated to South…

B-0008321

1949-2024

Pravin Jamnadas Gordhan

… South Africans. For those of us who have had the privilege to work very closely with him, and really got to know him, we will have learnt that he is a man…

B-0096463

1929-2017

Ahmed Mohamed "Kathy" Kathrada

… Ahmed Mohamed "Kathy" Kathrada was born on 21 August 1929, to Indian immigrant parents in Schweizer Reneke, a small town in Western Transvaal [now North West…

B-0008231

1920-1964

Vuyisile Mini

… in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth. Mini's father was a Port Elizabeth dockworker active in labour and community struggles, which inspired Mini, at 17, to…

B-0008562

1953

Mosima Gabriel (Tokyo) Sexwale

… other students. During the late 1960s and 1970s he was a staunch  Black Consciousness  supporter and a member and leader of the South African Students’…

B-0009025

1928-1999

Dr. Zacharias “Zac” Johannes De Beer

… children of Jean Isobel and Zacharias Johannes de Beer, a medical doctor. He attended the Bishops Diocesan College in Rondebosch from 1963 to 45. He…

B-0007979

Veerammal Naidoo

… because of the repeated imprisonments of her husband, a leading political activist in the Transvaal (now Gauteng ). … breadwinner of the family. His wife and…

B-0095281

1964

Ntela Richard Sikhosana

… Wembezi High (Estcourt) in 1983. During December 1983, as a young activist, he was forced into exile in Mozambique, … and Joe Slovo secured his release…

B-0078913

1951

Helen Zille

… at St. Mary's Waverley in Johannesburg . She obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of the Witwatersrand. A prominent journalist and anti…

B-0009259

1929

Selby Themba Ngendane

… Youth League during the 1952  Defiance Campaign . Moving to  Johannesburg  to study law in 1953, he joined the … elected secretary for foreign affairs. He…

B-0068242

Cecil Sols

… Cecil Sols worked as a freelance photographer with a collective of social documentary photographers in the 1980s to early 1990s, helping to expose the…

B-0122503

1925-1983

Cassim Mohammed Bassa

… He was the eighth of nine children of Mohammed Bassa, a businessman, and his wife Fathima. Bassa's father came to South Africa with his family in 1927. Bassa…

B-0007834

1943-2008

Oscar Dumisani Dhlomo

… the fifth of the 11 children of Flora and Isaac Dhlomo, a transport operator who ran a fleet of buses.He attended primary school and the Sibusiswe … prefect…

B-0008001

1944

Virgile Joseph Bonhomme

… At the age of 15 he became an apprentice upholsterer at a furniture manufacturing business, where he remained for 14 … at all furniture manufacturing…

B-0099507

1950-1990

Muntu Myeza

… Muntu Myeza was born on 3 December 1950 to Jacob and Julia Myeza in Natal where he also did his early … Myeza enrolled at the University of Zululand to study…

B-0121056