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BiographyBen Turok
Leading member of the South African Congress of Democrats (CoD). He was born in Latvia in 1927 and came with his family to South Africa in 1934. After…
EventChief Cyprian Zulu warns his people not to participate in the Defiance Campaign
… The Defiance Campaign was planned in the 1950s in response to the enactment of numerous apartheid laws …
EventThe South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) introduces its first national news service
The history of broadcasting in South Africa can be traced back to 1923, when the first wireless broadcast was made in Johannesburg. By April 1927, an hour of…
Indian Community in Lenasia
… answer to an urgent need. They moved there in the early 1950s, living in barracks that were partitioned off into … in Lenasia, in 1955, was nonexistent…
ArticleRustenburg Timeline 1850-2001
1850 The Nederduitsch Hervormde Church (Nederduitsch Reformed Church) establishes a congregation in Rustenburg. 16 November, A Hervormde congregation is…
The Rorke’s Drift Art and Craft Centre
… and occupied some existing disused buildings: In the late 1950s Rorke's Drift farm of 5000 acres was proclaimed White …
EventAt a summit SA Trade Unions resolve to defy apartheid and labour laws
… South Africa's labour laws for the first time since the 1950s. Non-racial unions agreed to continue their defiance of …
South African and World leaders
… In 1948 she joined the ANC Women’s League and in the 1950s she began to assume a leadership role – both in the ANC … that every citizen of a country has or…
EventEdgar D. Ngoyi, South African ANC leader who spent seventeen years on Robben Island, is born.
… Congress (ANC) as a member of the ANC Youth League in the 1950s. After the banning of the ANC in 1960, Ngoyi went …
ArticleChanging Perceptions of Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela is a figure who has undergone many transformations in the eye of the South African public as well as in the global imagination. He has played…
BiographyAlan McLeod Cormack
Alan Cormack, the youngest of three children, was born in Johannesburg in February 1924. His father was an engineer with the Post Office and his mother a…
BiographyLesedi Billy Masetlha
Lesedi Billy Masetlha was born on 21 November 1954 in Alexandra, Johannesburg, Transvaal (now Gauteng).He was one of the six children in a family with roots in…
BiographyMary Elizabeth Davis
Mary Elizabeth Davis was born in Portobello County, Edinburgh, Scotland on 26 December 1858. She was a business person and supporter of women’s causes. Davis…
BiographyFiroz Cachalia
Professor Firoz Cachalia holds a BA degree, a BA (Hons) degree, an LLB and a Higher Diploma in Company Law from Witwatersrand University. Cachalia is currently…
BiographyMathews Phosa
Nakedi Mathews Phosa was born on 1 September 1952 in Mbombela Township, Nelspruit, Eastern Transvaal (now Mpumalanga Province). He grew up with his grandfather…
BiographyThomas 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…
BiographyCloete Breytenbach
Breytenbach was born in 1933 and grew up in Bonnievale in the Cape Winelands. His father was a farmer. Later the family moved to Wellington in Cape Town. As a…
BiographyPaul David
Devadas Paul David ( Paul David) was born on 26 August 1940 in Pietermaritzburg, Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal - UKZN) into a devout Catholic family. His…
BiographyBuchi Emecheta
Florence Onyebuchi Emecheta Obe ‘Buchi Emecheta’ was born in the Nigerian city of Lagos on 21 July in 1944 to Jeremy Nwabudinke, a railway worker and Alice …
BiographyAnton Edward Rupert
Anton Edward Rupert was born on 4 October 1916 in Graaff-Reinet in the south-central Karoo. He enrolled at the University of Pretoria for a medical degree,…
BiographyProfessor Carel Boshoff
Carel Boshoff was born on 9 November 1927, a second child from the second marriage of his father. He spent his early life on a cattle farm in the Waterberg…
BiographyAnthony Sampson
… editor of Drum magazine in Johannesburg during the 1950s …
BiographyBusisiwe Victoria Mhlongo
Busisiwe Victoria Mhlongo, popularly known as Busi Mhlongo, was born on 28 October 1947 at Inanda, near Durban in KwaZulu-Natal. She began her singing…
BiographyMmapula Mmakgoba “Helen” Sebidi
Mmapula Mmakgoba Helen Sebidi was born in Marapyane, near Hammanskraal,on 5th March in 1943. She developed a life-long love for the designs of traditional arts…
BiographyEdward 'Eddie' John Daniels
Eddie Daniels was born on 25 October 1928 in District 6, Cape Town where also grew up and attended Sydney Street School. District 6 was one of the so-called …
BiographyHilary Mutch
Hilary Mutch (née Hilary Claire) was born on 4 November 1941 in Erith, south-east London into a Jewish family. Her father, a South African worked as a doctor…
BiographyAchmad Cassiem
Imam Achmad Cassiem was born 12th of December in 1945 and grew up in an Islamic environment. He became politicised in the 1960s when the Pan Africanist…
BiographyMatlakana Philemon Tefu
Philemon Matlakana Tefu was born in 1940 and grew up in the township of Riversdale in Pretoria. In 1954 his family was forcibly removed from the area to…
BiographySheena Duncan
Sheena Duncan was born in Johannesburg on 7th of December in 1932 and was the eldest of the five children in her family. She was educated at the Roedean School…