SAHO global search

1938

Enos Molapo Makhubedu

Enos Molapo Makhubedu was born at Eersterus, near Pretoria in 1938. He grew up in Pilgrim’s Rest where he completed his higher primary school studies in 1951…

B-0008405

1920-2002

Ismail "Tatamkhulu Afrika" Joubert

Ismail "Tatamkhulu Afrika" Joubert  was born in As Sallum in Egypt as Mohamed Faud Nasif to an Arab father and a Turkish mother on 7 December 1920. His parents…

B-0065030

1951-2025

Rashid Lombard

Rashid Lombard was born in Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha), Eastern Province (now Eastern Cape) on 10 April 1951. In 1962, his family relocated to Cape Town,…

B-0093746

1954

Vice Admiral Refiloe Johannes Mudimu

Vice Admiral J. Mudimu was born on 6 March 1954 in Sophiatown (Johannesburg). He joined the African National Congress (ANC) and Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK) in 1975…

B-0074796

1959-2010

Mthuthuzeli Tom

Mthuthuzeli Tom was born on 7 September 1959, in the village of Mpongo outside East London, and was one of eight children. His mother was a domestic worker and…

B-0009153

Ramnie Dinat

Ramnie Naidoo, the daughter of Ama and Narainsamy Thambi Naidoo, worked in the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress (TIYC) since her childhood. At the age of nine,…

B-0095275

1952-2003

Fikile Magadledla

Fikile Magadledla, South African artist and co-founder of the Soweto Art Association, was born in Newclare, Johannesburg, on 13 December 1952. As a young boy…

B-0008370

1847-1932

Harriette Emily Colenso

Harriette Emily Colenso was She was born in Norfolk, England, in 1847, the oldest child of Bishop John William Colenso of Natal. Until her father's death in…

B-0007954

1936-2011

Bafana Cyril Dlamini

Bafana Cyril Dlamini whose nom de guerrre in exile was Edwin Ndlovu was born in 1936 to the family of a prominent political and trade union activist. His…

B-0068438

1908-1996

Jean Sinclair

Jean Sinclair was born in 1908 and became involved in politics after the Springbok Legion protested against the National Party’s segregationist bills. She…

B-0068468

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

1925

Gertrude Shope

Gertrude Shope was born in Johannesburg, but grew up in Zimbabwe. She was trained as a teacher, and went on to teach in Natal and Soweto. When she was 29 years…

B-0068449

1959-2024

Tito Mboweni

Early LifeAfter completing high school, Tito Mboweni attended the University of the North in Transvaal between 1979 and 1980, where he was registered for a…

B-0008523

1894-1961

Hermione Stephanie Lombard Faure

Stephanie Faure was born on 9 September 1894 in Pretoria. She was the daughter of Jacobus C. Faure who was a civil servant of the Transvaal Republic, and his…

B-0008058

1928-2008

Cleopas Madoda Nsibande

Cleopas Nsibande was born into a family of seven on 25 March 1928, in Nyibe Location near Ermelo in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa. He attended…

B-0008817

1928-2008

Cleopas Madoda Nsibande

Cleopas Nsibande was born into a family of seven on 25 March 1928, in Nyibe Location near Ermelo in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa. He attended…

B-0068273

1959

Thandi Modise

Thandi Modise, the youngest of six children, was born on 25 December 1959 in Huhudi township near Vryburg in the North West. Her father, Frans Modise, a…

B-0008591

1963

Robert John McBride

Robert John McBride was born on 6 July 1963 at the segregated Addington Hospital in Durban, Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal), in the section set aside for Coloured…

B-0067934

Charlene Smith

A mother, rape survivor, journalist/writer who became well-known, at the age of 17 when she reported on the 1976 Soweto uprising the dead bodies and the…

B-0009083

1872-1940

Dr Abdullah Abdurahman

Dr Abdullah Abdurahman, who was born in Wellington (Cape Town ) on 18 December 1872 and graduated as a medical doctor from the University of Glasgow in 1893.He…

B-0007765

1936-1999

Ahmed Gora Ebrahim

Ahmed Gora Ebrahim was born in Durban on 29 May 1936.  Ebrahim cut his political teeth in Trotskyite circles while studying at Sastri College and Natal…

B-0096554

1879-1966

Alfred Assegai (Mkhonto) Kumalo

Alfred Assegai (Mkhonto) Kumalo was born on 4 January 1879 in Edendale, Pietermaritzburg. At the age of four his parents moved to Amajuba in the southeast of…

B-0008285

1939-2001

Laurent Kabila

Laurent Desire Kabila was born on 27 November 1939 into the Luba tribe in the Katanga Province in the Belgian Congo. In 1960 Kabila became a leader of a youth…

B-0124602

1870-1946

Anna 'Sister Nannie' Tempo

Anna 'Sister Nannie' Tempo, was born of a slave mother and father who were kidnapped as children off the coast of Mozambique. She was born in the late 1870s…

B-0124732

1936-2008

Andrew Mandla Lekoto Masondo

Andrew Mandla Lekoto Masondo was born in Soweto, Johannesburg. He attended school at Saint Angsgurs Primary School in 1946 and matriculated in 1954 from the…

B-0008476

1923-1987

Massabalala (Bonnie) Yengwa

Massabalala Yengwa, was the son of the Zulu labourer who had been jailed during the African National Congress (ANC) anti-pass campaign of 1919. Yengwa was born…

B-0009251

1937-2019

Zubeida “Juby” "Sharon Davis" Mayet

Zubeida “Juby” "Sharon Davis" Mayet was born December 27,in 1937 in Fietas, Johannesburg, Transvaal (now Gauteng). Mayet began writing in the mid-1950s while…

B-0080693

1957-1985

Richard Barney Lekgotla Molokoane

Richard Barney Lekgotla Molokoane was born on 27 August 1957 in Tladi, Soweto.  Molokoane became politically active during the student uprising of 1976, and…

B-0068082

1930-1985

Molly Blackburn

Molly Blackburn was born in 1930.  She was the daughter of Elgar Bellhouse who was at one time the chairperson of the Progressive Party (PP) in Port Elizabeth …

B-0007860

1909-1997

Frances Baard

Frances “MaBaard” Baard was born 1st of October in 1909 in Kimberley, Northern Cape. She was the fifth of seven children of a Bechuuanaland-born mine worker…

B-0007802