Steve Biko
| Stephen Biko | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Stephen Bantu Biko 18 December 1946 Ginsberg, South Africa |
| Died | 12 September 1977 (aged 30) Pretoria, South Africa |
| Occupation | Anti-apartheid activist |
| Spouse(s) | Ntsiki Mashalaba |
| Partner(s) | Mamphela Ramphele |
| Children | 5, including Hlumelo Biko |
Stephen Bantu Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977) was an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, until his death while in police custody.
A student leader, Biko went on to found the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), mobilizing much of South Africa's urban black population. Biko has been called a martyr of the anti-apartheid movement. While alive, his writings and activism had the goal of empowering black people. He was famous for his slogan "black is beautiful", which he described as meaning: "man, you are okay as you are, begin to look upon yourself as a human being".
Biko was never a member of the African National Congress (ANC), but the ANC considered him an anti-apartheid hero and used his image in campaign posters in South Africa's first non-racial elections in 1994.Nelson Mandela said of Biko: "They had to kill him to prolong the life of apartheid."
Biko was born to Mzingayi Mathew and Alice 'Mamcete' Biko in Ginsberg Township, in what is now the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. His father was a government clerk and law student. His mother did domestic work in local white homes. The third of four children, Biko grew up with his older sister Bukelwa; his older brother Khaya; and his younger sister Nobandile. His father gave him his name, Bantu Stephen Biko, which Biko is said to have understood to mean "a person is a person by means of other people". In 1950, when Biko was four, his father died.
Biko was a Xhosa. In addition to Xhosa, he spoke fluent English and fairly fluent Afrikaans. As a child, he attended Brownlee Primary School and Charles Morgan Higher Primary School. He was sent to Lovedale High School in 1964, a prestigious boarding school in Alice, Eastern Cape, where his older brother Khaya had previously been studying. During the apartheid era, when there was no freedom of association protection for non-white South Africans, Biko was expelled from Lovedale for his political views, and his brother was arrested for his alleged association with Poqo (now known as the Azanian People's Liberation Army). After his expulsion, he attended and in 1965 graduated from St. Francis College, a Roman Catholic institution in Mariannhill, Natal.
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