SAHO global search

1815-1892

King Sarhili kaHintsa

… King Sarhili was the last King to rule over Xhosaland before it was fragmented by the consequences of the ‘Cattle Killing Movement’ of 1856-7. The movement…

B-0123686

1798-1853

Andries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius

… was born on 27 November 1798 near  Graaff-Reinet  in the Cape Colony. He was educated by travelling teachers and … By 1837 he still lived in Graaff Reinet…

B-0068324

1945

Horst Gerhard Hermann Kleinschmidt

… was born on 17 October 1945 in Swakopmund, Namibia. At the age of four his family moved to Johannesburg where he grew up. Most of his schooling took place at…

B-0008267

1925-1985

Alex la Guma

… both for his reportage and fiction writing depicting the oppressive measures of Apartheid . la Guma was born in 1925 in District Six , South Africa. He was…

B-0008291

1893-1962

Dr Alfred Bitini Xuma

… was born on 8 March 1893, in Manzana, Ngcobo District, in the Eastern Province (now Eastern Cape). Xuma was the seventh child of Abraham Mangali Xuma and…

B-0009245

1918-1975

Thomas Patrick Murray

… Thomas Patrick Murray was the eldest of the three sons of Patrick Murray, a boiler-maker and trade … completing his schooling at Malvern Primary School and…

B-0008713

1936-1999

Ahmed Gora Ebrahim

… University (now University of kwaZulu-Natal) in Durban and the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, Transvaal (now Gauteng). He joined the Pan…

B-0096554

1897-1961

Elias Phakane Moretsele

… At an early age he moved to Johannesburg where he joined the South African Native National Congress (SANNC, since 1923 the ANC) in 1917. He was the owner of…

B-0068097

1929-2021

Norman Levy

… and his twin brother, Leon (a founding member and later the National President of the South African Congress of Trade Unions [SACTU]) were the youngest of…

B-0008327

1915-1983

B J Vorster [John Vorster]

… Vorster (also known as BJ Vorster or John Vorster) was the Prime Minister of South Africa from 1966 to 1978, after … Nationalist who early in his life became…

B-0009211

1902-1996

Jane Gool

… in Cape Town on 19 March 1902 to Yusuf and Wageda Gool, the sixth of nine children. Her father, an immigrant from … was a successful merchant, who had strong…

B-0122124

1923-2013

Reginald (Reggie) September

… was born in Wynberg in Cape Town on 13 June 1923, the son of Florence, a housewife, and Nicholas September, a carpenter. He first attended the Broad Road…

B-0009020

1915-1974

Michael Alan Harmel

… opposed to racism while studying at Rhodes University in the 1930s. An intellectual and a revolutionary, Harmel was … versed in Marxism-Leninism and deeply…

B-0008142

1918-2011

Albertina Nontsikelelo Sisulu

… Albertina Sisulu (née Nontsikelelo Thethiwe) was one of the prominent anti-apartheid South African leaders, widely referred to as the “Mother of the Nation”…

B-0065389

1940

Sindiso Mfenyana

… Background and Childhood Sindiso Mfenyana is descended from the Bhele clan, which is an offshoot of the Hlubi tribe. He traces his roots back to a small town…

B-0123703

1947

Dr Gurunathen (Guru) Kistnasamy

… Thaniachallam Kistnasamy Naicker, worked as a builder at the local Huletts Sugar Mill and his mother, Shanbagavalli, was a housewife. Kistnasamy  attended…

B-0123670

1905-1994

Advocate Israel “Isie” Aaron Maisels

… had come to South Africa with his siblings and parents in the 1890s from Pokroy, a small village in Lithuania and his … and received his undergraduate and…

B-0008386

1924-1969

Imam Abdullah Haron

… on 8 February 1924 in Newlands-Claremont, an area which in the late twentieth century became a very prosperous … commercial centre in Cape Town’s southern…

B-0008144

1866-1942

James Barry Munnik Hertzog

… Munnik (JBM) Hertzog was born in Soetendal Wellington on the 6 th of April 1866. Hertzog was the eighth child of Johannes Albertus Munnik Hertzog, a … Johann…

B-0008156

1913-1998

Father Trevor Huddleston

… England to Ernest Huddleston and his wife. Soon after, the family moved to Golders Green, a suburb in North London. At the age of four Huddleston served as a…

B-0008180

1926-1995

Joe Slovo

… in 1926. He moved to South Africa with his parents at the age of nine. His father was a van driver in Johannesburg … as a dispatch clerk for a chemist while…

B-0009082

1945

Luis Inácio Lula da Silva

… Luis Inácio Lula da Silva was born on 27 October 1945 in the state of Pernambuco in Brazil. He was the 35th President of Brazil. President Lula had little ……

B-0065251

1896-1948

Abdulla Ismail Kajee

… Kajee was a politically moderate Moslem businessman and the dominant figure in the  Natal Indian Congress  (NIC) from the mid-1930s to 1945, when militants…

B-0008226

Myron Peter

… Durban , Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal - KZN). He studied at the University of Durban-Westville (UDW) [now University of KwaZulu-Natal - UKZN]. Following the…

B-0008880

1879-1935

Tielman Johannes de Villiers Roos

… was born in Cape Town on 8 May 1879. He was educated at the South African College qualified as an advocate when he … barrister. Roos' political life started…

B-0067328

Jomo Kenyatta

… born Kamau to parents Moigoi and Wamboi ”” his father was the chief of a small agricultural village in Gatundu … Kiambu District ”” one of five…

B-0099749

1956-1985

Fort Calata

… Calata was born on 5 November 1956. Fort’s grandfather, the Reverend Canon James Arthur Calata , was the Secretary General of the African National Congress …

B-0064862

1929-2008

Billy Nair

… vessel which transported sugar (SS Frontier). He attended the Essendene Road Primary school in Sydenham, Durban and … a result of his trade union activities…

B-0008740

1925-2013

Colin Wells Eglin

… He grew up in Pinelands, Cape Town, but moved at the age of nine to live with his aunt, outside Hobhouse, … Eastern Free State after his father died. Eglin…

B-0008044

1891-1922

Samuel Alfred (Taffy) Long

… home when he was ten years old and went coal mining in the forest of Dean, Wales. At the age of nineteen, Long joined the Royal Horse Artillery and Royal…

B-0067743