Biko, Stephen (1940–1977)

Stephen Biko was the most prominent leader of the black consciousness movement, which flourished among African students from the late 1960s through the 1970s. His life reflected the lot of frustrated young African intellectuals. In his death, he became a symbol of the martyrdom of African nationalists whose struggle focused critical world attention on South Africa more strongly than at any time since the Sharpeville shooting in 1960.

His early schooling started at Lovedale, in the Eastern Cape. He later moved to Natal to attend a Roman Catholic boarding school and later enrolled at the University of Natal Medical School (Black Section) in 1966. Biko gave up what could have been a comfortable life as a medical doctor; instead, he devoted his life to selflessly work for the total liberation of South Africa. He and his colleagues founded the South African Students' Organization in 1968, and Biko was elected its first president. The organization was born out of the frustrations African students encountered within the multiracial National Union of South African Students and geared itself toward addressing those frustrations and problems. But the black students, under his leadership, went on to further argue that they were black before they were students and argued for a black political organization in the country. Opinions were canvassed; finally, the Black People's Convention was founded in July 1972 and inaugurated in December of the same year.

Through his inspiration, the youth of the country at high-school level were mobilized, and this resulted in the formation of the South African Students' Movement. This is the movement that played a pivotal role in the 1976 Soweto uprisings, which accelerated the course of the liberation struggle in South Africa. In 1973, a flurry of political restrictions were gradually imposed on African youth in black institutions. They culminated in banning orders, and in June 1976, high-school students and police clashed violently and fatally, and continuing widespread urban unrest threatened law and order.

In the wake of the Soweto revolt of 1976 and with the prospects of national revolution becoming increasingly real, security police detained Biko. He was taken to Port Elizabeth and on September 11, 1977, he was moved to Pretoria, Transvaal, where he mysteriously died. The apartheid authorities made every effort to conceal how he died, claiming, among other explanations, that Biko died of a hunger strike. This story was dropped after it was revealed by Donald Woods, the editor of the East London Daily Dispatch, that Biko died of brain damage caused by beatings by the South African police.

This disclosure was very damaging to South African authorities, and Biko's death made him a martyr. When, in 1997, his killers appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to request amnesty for the death of Biko, they only claimed responsibility for assaulting him and maintained that his death was accidental. His death caused a worldwide outcry, and he became a martyr and symbol of black resistance to the oppressive apartheid regime. As a result, the South African government banned a number of individuals, including Donald Woods and those black consciousness groups closely associated with Biko. The U.N. Security Council imposed an arms embargo against South Africa. Stephen Biko's contribution to the liberation struggle was finally commemorated with the unveiling of a memorial statue of him in his birthplace at King Williamstown.

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