SAHO global search

1918-1982

Bartholomew Hlapane

Bartholomew  Moru Hlapane was born in 1918 in in the Ficksburg distric of the Orange Free State. Hlapane was a factory worker. A traitor to the African…

B-0008160

1955

Caesarina Kona Makhoere

Caesarina Kona Makhoere was born near Pretoria in 1955. Her father was a policeman and her mother worked as a domestic worker.  At a young age she was forcibly…

B-0008402

1949

Bee Berman

Bee Berman was born in 1949 in Cape Town, Western Province (now Western Cape).After her schooling, Berman worked as a stage designer and actress at The Space…

B-0093697

1949

Kgalema Petrus Motlanthe

Kgalema Petrus Motlanthe was born on 19 July 1949 at the Boksburg-Benoni Hospital. He grew up in Alexandra, Johannesburg, Transvaal (now Gauteng). His parents,…

B-0068113

1946-2014

Mafika Pascal Gwala

Mafika Pascal Gwala was born on 5 October 1946 in the town of Verulam, a region predominantly inhabited by Zulus and Indians, in what was then Natal province …

B-0085150

1940-2011

Wangari Maathai

Wangari Muta Maathai Anchor was a prominent Kenyan environmental and political activist. Maathai is internationally renowned for her unrelenting efforts in…

B-0120967

1787-1828

Shaka Zulu

Sigidi kaSenzangakhona commonly knows as Shaka was a great Zulu king and conqueror. He lived in an area of south-east Africa between the Drakensberg and the…

B-0009265

1877-1957

Walton Zacharias Fenyang

Walton Zacharias  Fenyang was born in 1877 in Thaba 'Nchu distric in the Orange Free State. An early treasurer of the African National Congress (ANC) and for…

B-0008063

1942

Letta Mbulu

Letta Mbulu was born in Soweto and, during her teens, she toured South Africa and then England with the musical King Kong. She returned to South Africa at the…

B-0067933

1943

Moebien Wadee

Moebien Wadee was born in Sophiatown in 1943. He schooled in the area before his family moved to Kliptown. He studied medicine at Glasgow University in…

B-0009215

1945-2013

Zolile Hamilton Keke

Zolile Hamilton Keke was born on 31st of October 1945 in East London and grew up in Duncan Village township. He attended Welsh High School in East London where…

B-0080383

June Rose Nala

June Rose Nala was born in Durban, Natal. She graduated from the Workers College at Ruskin College, Oxford. Before becoming active in the Natal trade union…

B-0094717

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

1925-1976

Joseph Masobila Mdluli

Joseph Mdluli was born in 1925 in lngwavuma, Northern Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal), the only son in the family. He grew up looking after his father's cattle and…

B-0074125

1929-2008

Billy Nair

Billy Nair was born in Ansonia Lane (now Lacey Road), Sydenham, Durban on 27 November 1929. He was one of five children born to Parvathy and Ittynian (Kisten)…

B-0008740

1921-2001

Athol Edwin Thorne

Athol Thorne was born in Springs, South Africa on 15th October 1921. His family soon moved to Durban where he attended school and university. His parents were…

B-0125363

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

1903-1938

Wolf Kibel

Wolf Kibel was born in Grodzisk, near Warsaw, Poland on 16 December 1903. As a young boy Kibel was preoccupied with carving. His father’s death in 1911 brought…

B-0008258

1798-1872

King Mpande kaSenzangakhona

Mpande was king of the Zulu nation from 1840 to 1872, making him the longest reigning Zulu king. He was a half-brother of Shaka and Dingane, who both preceded…

B-0008679

1932

Dr Essop Essak Jassat

Dr Essop Essak Jassat, the second of three children, was born on 5 October 1932 in 11th Street Vrededorp, Johannesburg. Both of his parents came from India…

B-0064875

1952

Lesley Lawson

One of the founding members of Afrapix, Lesley Lawson was born in Durban in 1952. She matriculated from Durban Girls College and attended the University of…

B-0008303

1946-1977

Stephen Bantu Biko

IntroductionStephen (Steve) Bantu Biko was a popular voice of Black liberation in South Africa between the mid 1960s and his death in police detention in 1977…

B-0007855

Percival Mdala

Percival Mdala grew up near King Williamstown in the Eastern Cape. He came to the Garden Route in 1956, where he found work as a gardener for Bishop Stainton,…

B-0125761

1934

Sibusiso Mandlenkosi Emmanuel Bengu

Sibusiso Mandlenkosi Emmanuel Bengu was born on 8th  of May in 1934 in Natal. He began his career as a teacher in 1952. His years of teaching culminated in the…

B-0007851

Connie Mofokeng

Mofokeng was a member of the Soweto Student Representative Council (SSRC) at the time of the Soweto uprising. After the uprising she was one of the hundreds…

B-0008595

1939

Chief Malebogo

Malebogo (Kgalusi Seketa Masilo Ratshatsha Malaboch) was chief of the Bahananwa chiefdom, a group of the Tswana peoples. Lebogo led the Bahananwa to the…

B-0008415

Douglas G. Wolton

Douglas G Wolton was a leader of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) from 1931 to 1933. He was born in Yorkshire, England, and immigrated to South…

B-0009236

Robert Moffat

Robert Moffat was born on 21 December 1795 in Ormiston, East Lothian, Scotland. His parents were not wealthy. He was father-in-law to the missionary-explorer,…

B-0098782

1946-2012

Professor Gert ‘Jakes’ Johannes Gerwel

Gert Johannes “Jakes” Gerwel was born on 18 January 1946 in the town of Kommadagga in the district of Somerset East, Eastern Province (now Eastern Cape). He is…

B-0094335

1922-2001

Sonia Beryl Bunting

Born Sonia Isaacman in 1922, she joined the Communist Party in 1942 and gave up her university studies to do full-time political work. After the banning of the…

B-0007900