Feature biographies

Campaigner for Indian rights

Teacher, lecturer, member of UDF and President of NOW, ANC politician and Deputy President of South Africa.  

A suffragette and civil rights activist of the Cape Colony.

Activist, Teacher, Director: Research coordination, Monitoring and Evaluation at Department of Basic Education. 

Editor of the Guardian newspaper, she was elected to the Cape Town City Council in 1943.

Journalist, Politician, Member of Parliament, Premier of the Western Cape and current leader of the Democratic Alliance ...

Political activist, academic, journalist, playwright, poet

Exiled ANC leader 1962-1990, Medical Doctor, Deputy Justice Minister 1994-1998, Health Minister 1999-2008

Lawyer, freedom fighter, founding member of APDUSA and Robben Island prisoner

Member of the PAC and Poqo, active in the BCM, President of the Black Domestic Workers’ Association and recipient of the...

King of the Zulus.

Human rights lawyer and underground ANC operative; member of the South African Law Commission; former Member of Parliame...

Author, community worker and mother.

Political activist, banned person, political prisoner, member of the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress, Federation of Sout...

Member of NOW, UDF, ANC and the Central Committee of the SACP. Delegate to the Codesa talks, Deputy Minister of Defence ...

Political activist, political prisoner, imprisoned  during  the Indian Passive Resistance Campaign and the 1952 Campaign...

Trade unionist, political activist and civic leader.

Trade unionist, participated in the 1952 Defiance Campaign, Vice-President of the Transvaal Indian Congress, member of t...

  A young girl who joined other women on a march to inform others of the passive resista

Youngest member of the Broederbond, Minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, moderator of the Southern Transvaal DRC synod...

Teacher and farmer, wife of Chief Albert John Luthuli, community leader, involved in the ANC and Daughters of Africa.

A Khoikhoi woman

Editor and political activist, member of the NIC and son of Mahatma Gandhi.

Member of the national executive committee of the ANC, leader of the 1957 bus boycott in Alexandra Township,  Treasurer-...

Medical doctor, co-founder and first chairperson of the Anti-Segregation Council, President of the NIC

Member of the ANC, MK, SACP and Cosatu, Deputy President of the ANC, third President of democratic South Africa. 

Political activist, member of TIC and MK

Member of the SRC at University of Zululand, member of SASO, National Organiser BPC, President of AZAPO, Chairperson of ...

Political activist, Member of the ANC, MK and SACP, Rivonia Trialist and Robben Island prisoner.

Political prisoner, member of the Non European Unity Movement, African People’s Democratic Union of South Africa, Britis...

Teacher, a member of the executive committee of the Liberal Party in the Transvaal, as well as a chairman of the South A...

Former Minister of Arts and Culture, political activist, analyst and writer.

uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) unit commander

A freelance photographer specialising in portraiture, education, health and gender issues

Political leader, journalist, editor and an organiser for the Natal Indian Congress, the Communist Party and the Congres...

Commerical traveller, executive member of the Transvaal Indian Congress and a member of the Evaton People’s Transport Co...

Delegate to the 1953 World Festival of Youth in Bucharest, member of the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress, trade unionist...

Poet, political activist, author, lecturer, exile, member of the African National Congress

Trade unionist, Secretary of SACTU, member of ANC and MK, singer and one of the first ANC members to be executed by the ...

Writer, Political Activist, Architect, SACP and MK member, banned person, politcal prisoner, exile,  recipient of The Or...