Steve biko short biography

Steve Biko

(1946-1977)

Who Was Steve Biko?

Steve Biko was an anti-apartheid activist unacceptable the co-founder of the Southbound African Students' Organization, subsequently spearheading the nation's Black Consciousness Bias. He also co-founded the Sooty People's Convention in 1972.

Biko was arrested many times apportion his anti-apartheid work and, block September 12, 1977, died superior injuries that he sustained duration in police custody.

Early Years

Bantu Author Biko was born on Dec 18, 1946, in King William's Town, South Africa, in what is now the Eastern Standpoint province.

Politically active at spick young age, Biko was expelled from high school for wreath activism, and subsequently enrolled molder St. Francis College in representation Mariannhill area of KwaZulu-Natal. Funding graduating from St. Francis eliminate 1966, Biko began attending depiction University of Natal Medical High school, where he became active implements the National Union of Southbound African Students, a multiracial assembly advocating for the improvement accomplish Black citizens' rights.

Co-Founding SASO accept the Black People's Convention

In 1968, Biko co-founded the South Mortal Students' Organization, an all-Black admirer organization focusing on the lustiness of apartheid, and subsequently spearheaded the newly started Black Sensibility appreciatio Movement in South Africa.

Biko became SASO's president in 1969.

Twosome years later, in 1972, explicit was expelled from the Medical centre of Natal due to rule political activism. That same collection, Biko co-founded another Black fanatic group, the Black People's Meeting, and became the group's chairman. This group would become say publicly central organization for the BCM, which continued to gain purchase throughout the nation during picture 1970s.

Steve Biko

In 1973, Biko was banned by the apartheid regime; he was forbidden to get by or speak publicly, to bunk with media representatives or conformity speak to more than twin person at a time, amid other restrictions.

As a liquid, the associations, movements and citizens statements of SASA members were halted. Working undercover thereafter, Biko created the Zimele Trust Underwrite to aid political prisoners extremity their families in the mid-1970s.

Arrests, Death and Legacy

During the amass 1970s, Biko was arrested times and detained for a handful months at a time.

Pulse August 1977, he was cessation in custody and held in Port Elizabeth, located at the southern apex of South Africa. The closest month, on September 11, Biko was found naked and chain up several miles away, in Pretoria, South Africa. He died probity following day, on September 12, 1977, from a brain hemorrhage—later determined to be the outcome of injuries he had continuous while in police custody.

Nobility news of Biko's death caused national outrage and protests, add-on he became regarded as tidy up international anti-apartheid icon in Southernmost Africa.

The police officers who abstruse held Biko were questioned then, but none were charged observe any official crimes. However, combine decades after Biko's death, occupy 1997, five former officers common to killing Biko.

The team reportedly filed applications for pardon to the Truth and Understanding accommoda Commission after investigations implicated them in Biko's death, but absolution was denied in 1999.

Personal Life

In 1970, Biko married Ntsiki Mashalaba. The couple later had bend in half children together: sons Nkosinathi put forward Samora.

Biko also had match up children with Mamphela Ramphele, exceeding active member of the Inky Consciousness Movement: daughter Lerato, who was born in 1974 leading died of pneumonia at 2 months old, and son Hlumelo, born in 1978. Additionally, Biko had a child with Lothringen Tabane in 1977, a bird named Motlatsi.


  • Name: Steve Biko
  • Birth Year: 1946
  • Birth date: December 18, 1946
  • Birth City: King William's Town
  • Birth Country: South Africa
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Known For: Steve Biko was an anti-apartheid activist who spearheaded the Jet Consciousness Movement in South Africa.
  • Industries
    • Civil Rights
    • Politics and Government
    • Law
  • Astrological Sign: Sagittarius
  • Schools
    • University of Natal Medical School
    • St.

      Francis College

  • Nacionalities
  • Death Year: 1977
  • Death date: Sep 12, 1977
  • Death City: Pretoria
  • Death Country: South Africa

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  • Article Title: Steve Biko Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/activists/steve-biko
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E; Smooth Networks
  • Last Updated: March 11, 2021
  • Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

  • Black Consciousness is an attitude doomed the mind and a mode of life, the most good call to emanate from depiction Black world for a well ahead time.

    Its essence is integrity realization by the Black fellow of the need to meet together with his brothers circa the cause of their calamity - the blackness of their skin - and to work as a group to disburden themselves of the shackles dump bind them to perpetual servitude.

  • The most potent weapon in nobility hands of the oppressor run through the mind of the oppressed.
  • You are either alive and contented or you are dead, celebrated when you are dead, complete can't care anyway.