SAHO global search

1935-1988

Sydney Alex Kumalo

Sydney Alex Kumalo was born in the middle of the colonial conquest of Africa, the same year that Benito Mussolini’s foreign armies invaded Abyssinia (later…

B-0122872

1938-1971

Ephraim Mojalefa Ngatane

Ephraim Mojalefa Ngatane was born in Maseru, Lesotho (then Basutoland) in 1938. He moved to Johannesburg in about 1943, where he was educated at the Mooki…

B-0008767

1938

Ngoako David Thebehali

David Thebehali was born on 3 June 1938 in Orlando East, Soweto. His parents were among the earliest residents of Soweto. From 1945 to 1952 he was a pupil at…

B-0009134

1943-1967

Basil Paul Petersen February

Basil February was born in District Six in 1944.The son of clerk and a midwife. His family moved around several times, living  in places like Elsies River,…

B-0071685

1929-2024

James Matthews

James David Matthews was born on 25 May 1929 in District Six in Cape Town, to working class parents. After completing standard seven, Matthews began to work…

B-0008484

1942-1985

Victoria Nonyamezelo Mxenge

Victoria Nonyamezelo Mxenge was born in 1942 in Tamara Village in King William’s Town, Eastern Province (now Eastern Cape) to Wilmot Goso and Nobantu Ntebe…

B-0008720

1804-1856

Chief Kgosi Sekonyela

Sekonyela was born in 1804 in Harrismith next to the Wilge River. He was born in the royal family and later became the Chief of the Batlokwa people. His father…

B-0068424

2012

Khanare Elais Monesa

Khanare Elais Monesa (36) was from Maseru in Lesotho. He started working in the mines in 1999. After working at two previous mines, he started working at…

B-0121600

1925-1968

Patrick Mosell Molaoa

Born in Johannesburg in 1925, he grew up in Alexandra Township and attended schools in Basutoland, Johannesburg, and Kimberley until matriculation. He was one…

B-0008617

Mkhuseli Joseph Kettledas

Mkhuseli Joseph Kettledas joined the Pan African Congress (PAC) in 1961. He was arrested on 8 April 1963 for sabotage and sentenced to ten years in prison. He…

B-0097818

Betty Radford

Betty Radford was arrested after the 4 August 1946 miner’s strike, together with, among others, WH Andrews and Moses Kotane. She was the editor of the Guardian…

B-0008927

1933-2002

Norma Kitson

Norma Kitson (nee Cranko) was born to Jewish parents in 1933 in Berea, Durban. She was one of four children, and had an elder sister Joan and brother Ronnie…

B-0008265

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

1943-2008

Oscar Dumisani Dhlomo

Oscar Dhlomo was born on 28 December 1943 at Putellos, Umbumbulu, about 30 kilometers South East of Durban, the fifth of the 11 children of Flora and Isaac…

B-0008001

1920-2013

Zainab Ebrahim Asvat

Zainab Ebrahim Asvat was born 1920 in Johannesburg, daughter of EI Asvat, came under the tutelage of her father as a young girl. She accompanied him to…

B-0007800

1891-1955

Dora Nginza

Sister Dora Nginza was affectionately known as the “Mother of New Brighton” as a result of her commitment to helping the sick and downtrodden and adopting…

B-0124047

1947-2019

Dumisani Shadrack Kumalo

Dumisani Shadrack Kumalo was born on 16 September 1947 in Kwambunda village on the banks of the Blood River in Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal).In 1947 the Kumalo…

B-0125661

1961-1994

Feroza Adam

Feroza Adam was born on the 16 August 1961. She was drawn into political activity in 1976 while she was a student at Lenasia’s Nirvana High School. While…

B-0007772

1886-1973

Maria Laubser

On 14 April 1886 Maggie Laubser was born on Bloublommetjieskloof farm in the district of Malmesbury in the Cape Colony. In 1903, at the impressionable age of…

B-0008300

1952

Tiyani Lybon Mabasa

Tiyani Lybon Mabasa was born in Johannesburg on 17 June 1952. The second of eight children, his single mother brought up Mabasa in Soweto.During his high…

B-0074549

1933-1986

Fabian Defu Ribeiro

Fabian Defu Ribeiro was born on the 19th of June 1933 in Bantule, he was the third child of Joseph and Katherine Ribeiro (nee Mothibe). His father came from…

B-0008955

1927

Ayesha Bibi “Asa” Dawood

Ayesha Bibi "Asa" Dawood was born in Worcester, Cape Province on the 31 January, 1927 to an Indian Merchant and a Malay woman. As a young girl, Asa (as she was…

B-0007976

1928

Christina Jasson

Born in 1928 Jasson worked as a clerk. She was active in the Port Elizabeth trade union movement, organising food and canning workers, and textile workers,…

B-0008201

1850s-1911

Pambani Jeremiah Mzimba

Pambani Jeremiah Mzimba was born in the 1850s at Ngqakayi in the Eastern Cape. His father, Ntibane Mzimba, was educated in Lovedale and became a deacon in the…

B-0065037

1920-1993

Hudson William Edison Ntsanwisi

Ntsanwisi was born on 11 July 1920 at the Shiluvane Mission Station in the Letaba District of Limpopo. He was the eldest child in a family of three. With only…

B-0068292

1953

Derek Andre Hanekom

Derek Andre Hanekom was born on 13th January 1953 in Cape Town, the son of an Afrikaner clerk, he graduated from Hoerskool Jan van Riebeeck in 1970 before…

B-0079038

1969

Lucas Radebe

Lucas Radebe was born on 12 April 1969 in Diepkloof, Soweto. When he was 15 years old, his parents sent him away to Bophuthatswana to avoid the violence in the…

B-0008926

1929-2000

Esme Bodenstein

Esme Bodenstein was born on 6 July 1929 in Johannesburg. She trained as a physiotherapist at St Mary’s Hospital in London before moving to Cape Town. There…

B-0094568

1947-2007

Neville Wilson Curtis

Neville Wilson Curtis was born on 16 October 1947, Johannesburg, Transvaal (now Gauteng). his one of five children of an Australia-born miner.His father, John …

B-0094976

1825-1904

Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger

Paul Kruger is believed to have been born on 10 October 1825 on his grandfather's farm, Bulhoek, in the Cradock district, near the present day town of…

B-0064847