Bantu Stephen Biko (18 December 1946 – 12
September 1977) was a South African anti-apartheid
activist. Ideologically an African nationalist
and African socialist, he was at the forefront
of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known
as the Black Consciousness Movement during
the late 1960s and 1970s. His ideas were articulated
in a series of articles published under the
pseudonym Frank Talk.
Raised in a poor Xhosa family, Biko grew up
in Ginsberg township in the Eastern Cape.
In 1966, he began studying medicine at the
University of Natal, where he joined the National
Union of South African Students (NUSAS). Strongly
opposed to the apartheid system of racial
segregation and white-minority rule in South
Africa, Biko was frustrated that NUSAS and
other anti-apartheid groups were dominated
by white liberals, rather than by the blacks
who were most affected by apartheid. He believed
that even when well-intentioned, white liberals
failed to comprehend the black experience
and often acted in a paternalistic manner.
He developed the view that to avoid white
domination, black people had to organise independently,
and to this end he became a leading figure
in the creation of the South African Students'
Organisation (SASO) in 1968. Membership was
open only to "blacks", a term that Biko used
in reference not just to Bantu-speaking Africans
but also to Coloureds and Indians. He was
careful to keep his movement independent of
white liberals, but opposed anti-white racism
and had various white friends and lovers.
The white-minority National Party government
were initially supportive, seeing SASO's creation
as a victory for apartheid's ethos of racial
separatism.
Influenced by Frantz Fanon and the African-American
Black Power movement, Biko and his compatriots
developed Black Consciousness as SASO's official
ideology. The movement campaigned for an end
to apartheid and the transition of South Africa
toward universal suffrage and a socialist
economy. It organised Black Community Programmes
(BCPs) and focused on the psychological empowerment
of black people. Biko believed that black
people needed to rid themselves of any sense
of racial inferiority, an idea he expressed
by popularizing the slogan "black is beautiful".
In 1972, he was involved in founding the Black
People's Convention (BPC) to promote Black
Consciousness ideas among the wider population.
The government came to see Biko as a subversive
threat and placed him under a banning order
in 1973, severely restricting his activities.
He remained politically active, helping organise
BCPs such as a healthcare centre and a crèche
in the Ginsberg area. During his ban he received
repeated anonymous threats, and was detained
by state security services on several occasions.
Following his arrest in August 1977, Biko
was severely beaten by state security officers,
resulting in his death. Over 20,000 people
attended his funeral.
Biko's fame spread posthumously. He became
the subject of numerous songs and works of
art, while a 1978 biography by his friend
Donald Woods formed the basis for the 1987
film Cry Freedom. During Biko's life, the
government alleged that he hated whites, various
anti-apartheid activists accused him of sexism,
and African racial nationalists criticised
his united front with Coloureds and Indians.
Nonetheless, Biko became one of the earliest
icons of the movement against apartheid, and
is regarded as a political martyr and the
"Father of Black Consciousness". His political
legacy remains a matter of contention.
== Biography ==
=== 
Early life: 1946–1966 ===
Bantu Stephen Biko was born on 18 December
1946, at his grandmother's house in Tarkastad,
Eastern Cape. The third child of Mzingaye
Mathew Biko and Alice 'Mamcete' Biko, he had
an older sister, Bukelwa, an older brother,
Khaya, and a younger sister, Nobandile. His
parents had married in Whittlesea, where his
father worked as a police officer. Mzingaye
was transferred to Queenstown, Port Elizabeth,
Fort Cox, and finally King William's Town,
where he and Alice settled in Ginsberg township.
This was a settlement of around 800 families,
with every four families sharing a water supply
and toilet. Both Bantu African and Coloured
people lived in the township, where Xhosa,
Afrikaans, and English were all spoken. After
resigning from the police force, Mzingaye
worked as a clerk in the King William's Town
Native Affairs Office, while studying for
a law degree by correspondence from the University
of South Africa. Alice was employed first
in domestic work for local white households,
then as a cook at Grey Hospital in King William's
Town. According to his sister, it was this
observation of his mother's difficult working
conditions that resulted in Biko's earliest
politicisation.
Biko's given name "Bantu" means "people";
Biko interpreted this in terms of the saying
"Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu" ("a person is a
person by means of other people"). As a child
he was nicknamed "Goofy" and "Xwaku-Xwaku",
the latter a reference to his unkempt appearance.
He was raised in his family's Anglican Christian
faith. In 1950, when Biko was four, his father
fell ill, was hospitalised in St. Matthew's
Hospital, Keiskammahoek, and died, making
the family dependent on his mother's income.Biko
spent two years at St. Andrews Primary School
and four at Charles Morgan Higher Primary
School, both in Ginsberg. Regarded as a particularly
intelligent pupil, he was allowed to skip
a year. In 1963 he transferred to the Forbes
Grant Secondary School in the township. Biko
excelled at maths and English and topped the
class in his exams. In 1964 the Ginsberg community
offered him a bursary to join his brother
Khaya as a student at Lovedale, a prestigious
boarding school in Alice, Eastern Cape. Within
three months of Steve's arrival, Khaya was
accused of having connections to Poqo, the
armed wing of the Pan Africanist Congress
(PAC), an African nationalist group which
the government had banned. Both Khaya and
Steve were arrested and interrogated by the
police; the former was convicted, then acquitted
on appeal. No clear evidence of Steve's connection
to Poqo was presented, but he was expelled
from Lovedale. Commenting later on this situation,
he stated: "I began to develop an attitude
which was much more directed at authority
than at anything else. I hated authority like
hell."From 1964 to 1965, Biko studied at St.
Francis College, a Catholic boarding school
in Mariannhill, Natal. The college had a liberal
political culture, and Biko developed his
political consciousness there. He became particularly
interested in the replacement of South Africa's
white minority colonial government with an
administration that represented the country's
black majority. Among the anti-colonialist
leaders who became Biko's heroes at this time
were Algeria's Ahmed Ben Bella and Kenya's
Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. He later said that
most of the "politicos" in his family were
sympathetic to the PAC, which had anti-communist
and African racialist ideas. Biko admired
what he described as the PAC's "terribly good
organisation" and the courage of many of its
members, but he remained unconvinced by its
racially exclusionary approach, believing
that members of all racial groups should unite
against the government. In December 1964,
he travelled to Zwelitsha for the ulwaluko
circumcision ceremony, symbolically marking
his transition from boyhood to manhood.
=== Early student activism: 1966–1968 ===
Biko was initially interested in studying
law at university, but many of those around
him discouraged this, believing that law was
too closely intertwined with political activism.
Instead they convinced him to choose medicine,
a subject thought to have better career prospects.
He secured a scholarship, and in 1966 entered
the "non-European" section of the University
of Natal Medical School in Wentworth, a township
of Durban. There, he joined what his biographer
Xolela Mangcu called "a peculiarly sophisticated
and cosmopolitan group of students" from across
South Africa; many of them later held prominent
roles in the post-apartheid era. The late
1960s was the heyday of radical student politics
across the world, as reflected in the protests
of 1968, and Biko was eager to involve himself
in this environment. Soon after he arrived
at the university, he was elected to the Students'
Representative Council (SRC).The university's
SRC was affiliated with the National Union
of South African Students (NUSAS). NUSAS had
taken pains to cultivate a multi-racial membership
but remained white-dominated because the majority
of South Africa's students were from the country's
white minority. As Clive Nettleton, a white
NUSAS leader, put it: "the essence of the
matter is that NUSAS was founded on white
initiative, is financed by white money and
reflects the opinions of the majority of its
members who are white". NUSAS officially opposed
apartheid, but it moderated its opposition
in order to maintain the support of conservative
white students. Biko and several other black
African NUSAS members were frustrated when
it organised parties in white dormitories,
which black Africans were forbidden to enter.
In July 1967, a NUSAS conference was held
at Rhodes University in Grahamstown; after
the students arrived, they found that dormitory
accommodation had been arranged for the white
and Indian delegates but not the black Africans,
who were told that they could sleep in a local
church. Biko and other black African delegates
walked out of the conference in anger. Biko
later related that this event forced him to
rethink his belief in the multi-racial approach
to political activism:
I realized that for a long time I had been
holding onto this whole dogma of nonracism
almost like a religion ... But in the course
of that debate I began to feel there was a
lot lacking in the proponents of the nonracist
idea ... they had this problem, you know,
of superiority, and they tended to take us
for granted and wanted us to accept things
that were second-class. They could not see
why we could not consider staying in that
church, and I began to feel that our understanding
of our own situation in this country was not
coincidental with that of these liberal whites.
=== Founding the South African Students' Organisation:
1968–1972 ===
==== Developing SASO ====
Following the 1968 NUSAS conference in Johannesburg,
many of its members attended a July 1968 conference
of the University Christian Movement at Stutterheim.
There, the black African members decided to
hold a December conference to discuss the
formation of an independent black student
group. The South African Students' Organisation
(SASO) was officially launched at a July 1969
conference at the University of the North;
there, the group's constitution and basic
policy platform were adopted. The group's
focus was on the need for contact between
centres of black student activity, including
through sport, cultural activities, and debating
competitions. Though Biko played a substantial
role in SASO's creation, he sought a low public
profile during its early stages, believing
that this would strengthen its second level
of leadership, such as his ally Barney Pityana.
Nonetheless, he was elected as SASO's first
president; Pat Matshaka was elected vice president
and Wuila Mashalaba elected secretary. Durban
became its de facto headquarters.
Biko developed SASO's ideology of "Black Consciousness"
in conversation with other black student leaders.
A SASO policy manifesto produced in July 1971
defined this ideology as "an attitude of mind,
a way of life. The basic tenet of Black Consciousness
is that the Blackman must reject all value
systems that seek to make him a foreigner
in the country of his birth and reduce his
basic human dignity." Black Consciousness
centred on psychological empowerment, through
combating the feelings of inferiority that
most black South Africans exhibited. Biko
believed that, as part of the struggle against
apartheid and white-minority rule, blacks
should affirm their own humanity by regarding
themselves as worthy of freedom and its attendant
responsibilities. It applied the term "black"
not only to Bantu-speaking Africans, but also
to Indians and Coloureds. SASO adopted this
term over "non-white" because its leadership
felt that defining themselves in opposition
to white people was not a positive self-description.
Biko promoted the slogan "black is beautiful",
explaining that this meant "Man, you are okay
as you are. Begin to look upon yourself as
a human being."Biko presented a paper on "White
Racism and Black Consciousness" at an academic
conference in the University of Cape Town's
Abe Bailey Centre in January 1971. He also
expanded on his ideas in a column written
for the SASO Newsletter under the pseudonym
"Frank Talk". His tenure as president was
taken up largely by fundraising activities,
and involved travelling around various campuses
in South Africa to recruit students and deepen
the movement's ideological base. Some of these
students censured him for abandoning NUSAS'
multi-racial approach; others disapproved
of SASO's decision to allow Indian and Coloured
students to be members. Biko stepped down
from the presidency after a year, insisting
that it was necessary for a new leadership
to emerge and thus avoid any cult of personality
forming around him.SASO decided after a debate
to remain non-affiliated with NUSAS, but would
nevertheless recognise the larger organisation
as the national student body. One of SASO's
founding resolutions was to send a representative
to each NUSAS conference. In 1970 SASO withdrew
its recognition of NUSAS, accusing it of attempting
to hinder SASO's growth on various campuses.
SASO's split from NUSAS was a traumatic experience
for many white liberal youth who had committed
themselves to the idea of a multi-racial organisation
and felt that their attempts were being rebuffed.
The NUSAS leadership regretted the split,
but largely refrained from criticising SASO.
The government—which regarded multi-racial
liberalism as a threat and had banned multi-racial
political parties in 1968—was pleased with
SASO's emergence, regarding it as a victory
of apartheid thinking.
==== Attitude to liberalism and personal relations
====
The early focus of the Black Consciousness
Movement (BCM) was on criticising anti-racist
white liberals and liberalism itself, accusing
it of paternalism and being a "negative influence"
on black Africans. In one of his first published
articles, Biko stated that although he was
"not sneering at the [white] liberals and
their involvement" in the anti-apartheid movement,
"one has to come to the painful conclusion
that the [white] liberal is in fact appeasing
his own conscience, or at best is eager to
demonstrate his identification with the black
people only insofar as it does not sever all
ties with his relatives on his side of the
colour line."Biko and SASO were openly critical
of NUSAS' protests against government policies.
Biko argued that NUSAS merely sought to influence
the white electorate; in his opinion, this
electorate was not legitimate, and protests
targeting a particular policy would be ineffective
for the ultimate aim of dismantling the apartheid
state. SASO regarded student marches, pickets,
and strikes to be ineffective and stated it
would withdraw from public forms of protest.
It deliberately avoided open confrontation
with the state until such a point when it
had a sufficiently large institutional structure.
Instead, SASO's focus was on establishing
community projects and spreading Black Consciousness
ideas among other black organisations and
the wider black community. Despite this policy,
in May 1972 it issued the Alice Declaration,
in which it called for students to boycott
lectures in response to the expulsion of SASO
member Abram Onkgopotse Tiro from the University
of the North after he made a speech criticising
its administration. The Tiro incident convinced
the government that SASO was a threat.In Durban,
Biko entered a relationship with a nurse,
Nontsikelelo "Ntsiki" Mashalaba; they married
at the King William's Town magistrates court
in December 1970. Their first child, Nkosinathi,
was born in 1971. Biko initially did well
in his university studies, but his grades
declined as he devoted increasing time to
political activism. Six years after starting
his degree, he found himself repeating his
third year. In 1972, as a result of his poor
academic performance, the University of Natal
barred him from further study.
=== Black Consciousness activities and Biko's
banning: 1971–1977 ===
==== Black People's Convention ====
In August 1971, Biko attended a conference
on "The Development of the African Community"
in Edendale. There, a resolution was presented
calling for the formation of the Black People's
Convention (BPC), a vehicle for the promotion
of Black Consciousness among the wider population.
Biko voted in favour of the group's creation
but expressed reservations about the lack
of consultation with South Africa's Coloureds
or Indians. A. Mayatula became the BPC's first
president; Biko did not stand for any leadership
positions. The group was formally launched
in July 1972 in Pietermaritzburg. By 1973,
it had 41 branches and 4000 members, sharing
much of its membership with SASO.
While the BPC was primarily political, Black
Consciousness activists also established the
Black Community Programmes (BCPs) to focus
on improving healthcare and education and
fostering black economic self-reliance. The
BCPs had strong ecumenical links, being part-funded
by a program on Christian action, established
by the Christian Institute of Southern Africa
and the South African Council of Churches.
Additional funds came from the Anglo-American
Corporation, the International University
Exchange Fund, and Scandinavian churches.
In 1972, the BCP hired Biko and Bokwe Mafuna,
allowing Biko to continue his political and
community work. In September 1972, Biko visited
Kimberley, where he met the PAC founder and
anti-apartheid activist Robert Sobukwe.Biko's
banning order in 1973 prevented him from working
officially for the BCPs from which he had
previously earned a small stipend, but he
helped to set up a new BPC branch in Ginsberg,
which held its first meeting in the church
of a sympathetic white clergyman, David Russell.
Establishing a more permanent headquarters
in Leopold Street, the branch served as a
base from which to form new BCPs; these included
self-help schemes such as classes in literacy,
dressmaking and health education. For Biko,
community development was part of the process
of infusing black people with a sense of pride
and dignity. Near King William's Town, a BCP
Zanempilo Clinic was established to serve
as a healthcare centre catering for rural
black people who would not otherwise have
access to hospital facilities. He helped to
revive the Ginsberg crèche, a daycare for
children of working mothers, and establish
a Ginsberg education fund to raise bursaries
for promising local students. He helped establish
Njwaxa Home Industries, a leather goods company
providing jobs for local women. In 1975, he
co-founded the Zimele Trust, a fund for the
families of political prisoners.Biko endorsed
the unification of South Africa's black liberationist
groups—among them the BCM, PAC, and African
National Congress (ANC)—in order to concentrate
their anti-apartheid efforts. To this end,
he reached out to leading members of the ANC,
PAC, and Unity Movement. His communications
with the ANC were largely via Griffiths Mxenge,
and plans were being made to smuggle him out
of the country to meet Oliver Tambo, a leading
ANC figure. Biko's negotiations with the PAC
were primarily through intermediaries who
exchanged messages between him and Sobukwe;
those with the Unity Movement were largely
via Fikile Bam.
==== Banning order ====
By 1973, the government regarded Black Consciousness
as a threat. It sought to disrupt Biko's activities,
and in March 1973 placed a banning order on
him. This prevented him from leaving the King
William's Town magisterial district, prohibited
him from speaking either in public or to more
than one person at a time, barred his membership
of political organisations, and forbade the
media from quoting him. As a result, he returned
to Ginsberg, living initially in his mother's
house and later in his own residence.
In December 1975, attempting to circumvent
the restrictions of the banning order, the
BPC declared Biko their honorary president.
After Biko and other BCM leaders were banned,
a new leadership arose, led by Muntu Myeza
and Sathasivian Cooper, who were considered
part of the Durban Moment. Myeza and Cooper
organised a BCM demonstration to mark Mozambique's
independence from Portuguese colonial rule
in 1975. Biko disagreed with this action,
correctly predicting that the government would
use it to crack down on the BCM. The government
arrested around 200 BCM activists, nine of
whom were brought before the Supreme Court,
accused of subversion by intent. The state
claimed that Black Consciousness philosophy
was likely to cause "racial confrontation"
and therefore threatened public safety. Biko
was called as a witness for the defence; he
sought to refute the state's accusations by
outlining the movement's aims and development.
Ultimately, the accused were convicted and
imprisoned on Robben Island.In 1973, Biko
had enrolled for a law degree by correspondence
from the University of South Africa. He passed
several exams, but had not completed the degree
at his time of death. His performance on the
course was poor; he was absent from several
exams and failed his Practical Afrikaans module.
The state security services repeatedly sought
to intimidate him; he received anonymous threatening
phone calls, and gun shots were fired at his
house. A group of young men calling themselves
'The Cubans' began guarding him from these
attacks. The security services detained him
four times, once for 101 days. With the ban
preventing him from gaining employment, the
strained economic situation impacted his marriage.
During his ban, Biko asked for a meeting with
Donald Woods, the white liberal editor of
the Daily Dispatch. Under Woods' editorship,
the newspaper had published articles criticising
apartheid and the white-minority regime and
had also given space to the views of various
black groups, but not the BCM. Biko hoped
to convince Woods to give the movement greater
coverage and an outlet for its views. Woods
was initially reticent, believing that Biko
and the BCM advocated anti-white racism. When
he met Biko for the first time, Woods expressed
his concern about the anti-white liberal sentiment
of Biko's early writings. Biko acknowledged
that his earlier "antiliberal" writings were
"overkill", but said that he remained committed
to the basic message contained within them.Over
the coming years the pair became close friends.
Woods later related that, although he continued
to have concerns about "the unavoidably racist
aspects of Black Consciousness", it was "both
a revelation and education" to socialise with
blacks who had "psychologically emancipated
attitudes". Biko also remained friends with
another prominent white liberal, Duncan Innes,
who served as NUSAS President in 1969; Innes
later commented that Biko was "invaluable
in helping me to understand black oppression,
not only socially and politically, but also
psychologically and intellectually". Biko's
friendship with these white liberals came
under criticism from some members of the BCM.
=== Death: 1977 ===
==== Arrest and death ====
In 1977, Biko broke his banning order by travelling
to Cape Town, hoping to meet Unity Movement
leader Neville Alexander and deal with growing
dissent in the Western Cape branch of the
BCM, which was dominated by Marxists like
Johnny Issel. Biko drove to the city with
his friend Peter Jones on 17 August, but Alexander
refused to meet with Biko, fearing that he
was being monitored by the police. Biko and
Jones drove back toward King William's Town,
but on 18 August they were stopped at a police
roadblock near Grahamstown. Biko was arrested
for having violated the order restricting
him to King William's Town. Unsubstantiated
claims have been made that the security services
were aware of Biko's trip to Cape Town and
that the road block had been erected to catch
him. Jones was also arrested at the roadblock;
he was subsequently held without trial for
533 days, during which he was interrogated
on numerous occasions.The security services
took Biko to the Walmer police station in
Port Elizabeth, where he was held naked in
a cell with his legs in shackles. On 6 September,
he was transferred from Walmer to room 619
of the security police headquarters in the
Sanlam Building in central Port Elizabeth,
where he was interrogated for 22 hours, handcuffed
and in shackles, and chained to a grille.
Exactly what happened has never been ascertained,
but during the interrogation he was severely
beaten by at least one of the ten security
police officers. He suffered three brain lesions
that resulted in a massive brain haemorrhage
on 6 September. Following this incident, Biko's
captors forced him to remain standing and
shackled to the wall. The police later said
that Biko had attacked one of them with a
chair, forcing them to subdue him and place
him in handcuffs and leg irons.Biko was examined
by a doctor, Ivor Lang, who stated that there
was no evidence of injury on Biko. Later scholarship
has suggested Biko's injuries must have been
obvious. He was then examined by two other
doctors who, after a test showed blood cells
to have entered Biko's spinal fluid, agreed
that he should be transported to a prison
hospital in Pretoria. On 11 September, police
loaded him into the back of a Land Rover,
naked and manacled, and drove him 740 miles
(1,190 km) to the hospital. There, Biko died
alone in a cell on 12 September 1977. According
to an autopsy, an "extensive brain injury"
had caused "centralisation of the blood circulation
to such an extent that there had been intravasal
blood coagulation, acute kidney failure, and
uremia". He was the twenty-first person to
die in a South African prison in twelve months,
and the forty-sixth political detainee to
die during interrogation since the government
introduced laws permitting imprisonment without
trial in 1963.
==== Response and investigation ====
News of Biko's death spread quickly across
the world, and became symbolic of the abuses
of the apartheid system. His death attracted
more global attention than he had ever attained
during his lifetime. Protest meetings were
held in several cities; many were shocked
that the security authorities would kill such
a prominent dissident leader. Biko's Anglican
funeral service, held on 25 September 1977
at King William's Town's Victoria Stadium,
took five hours and was attended by around
20,000 people. The vast majority were black,
but a few hundred whites also attended, including
Biko's friends, such as Russell and Woods,
and prominent progressive figures like Helen
Suzman, Alex Boraine, and Zach de Beer. Foreign
diplomats from thirteen nations were present,
as was an Anglican delegation headed by Bishop
Desmond Tutu. The event was later described
as "the first mass political funeral in the
country". Biko's coffin had been decorated
with the motifs of a clenched black fist,
the African continent, and the statement "One
Azania, One Nation"; Azania was the name that
many activists wanted South Africa to adopt
post-apartheid. Biko was buried in the cemetery
at Ginsberg. Two BCM-affiliated artists, Dikobé
Ben Martins and Robin Holmes, produced a T-shirt
marking the event; the design was banned the
following year. Martins also created a commemorative
poster for the funeral, the first in a tradition
of funeral posters that proved popular throughout
the 1980s.
Speaking publicly about Biko's death, the
country's police minister Jimmy Kruger initially
implied that it had been the result of a hunger
strike, a statement he later denied. His account
was challenged by some of Biko's friends,
including Woods, who said that Biko had told
them that he would never kill himself in prison.
Publicly, he stated that Biko had been plotting
violence, a claim repeated in the pro-government
press. South Africa's attorney general initially
stated that no one would be prosecuted for
Biko's death. Two weeks after the funeral,
the government banned all Black Consciousness
organisations, including the BCP, which had
its assets seized.Both domestic and international
pressure called for a public inquest to be
held, to which the government agreed. It began
in Pretoria's Old Synagogue courthouse in
November 1977, and lasted for three weeks.
Both the running of the inquest and the quality
of evidence submitted came in for extensive
criticism. An observer from the Lawyers' Committee
for Civil Rights Under Law stated that the
affidavit's statements were "sometimes redundant,
sometimes inconsistent, frequently ambiguous";
David Napley described the police investigation
of the incident as "perfunctory in the extreme".
The security forces alleged that Biko had
acted aggressively and had sustained his injuries
in a scuffle, in which he had banged his head
against the cell wall. The presiding magistrate
accepted the security forces' account of events
and refused to prosecute any of those involved.The
verdict was treated with scepticism by much
of the international media and the US Government
led by President Jimmy Carter. On 2 February
1978, based on the evidence given at the inquest,
the attorney general of the Eastern Cape stated
that he would not prosecute the officers.
After the inquest, Biko's family brought a
civil case against the state; at the advice
of their lawyers, they agreed to a settlement
of R65,000 (US$78,000) in July 1979. Shortly
after the inquest, the South African Medical
and Dental Council initiated proceedings against
the medical professionals who had been entrusted
with Biko's care; eight years later two of
the medics were found guilty of improper conduct.
The failure of the government-employed doctors
to diagnose or treat Biko's injuries has been
frequently cited as an example of a repressive
state influencing medical practitioners' decisions,
and Biko's death as evidence of the need for
doctors to serve the needs of patients before
those of the state.After the abolition of
apartheid and the establishment of a majority
government in 1994, a Truth and Reconciliation
Commission was established to investigate
past human-rights abuses. The Commission made
plans to investigate Biko's death, but his
family petitioned against this on the grounds
that the Commission could grant amnesty to
those responsible, thereby preventing the
family's right to justice and redress. In
1996, the Constitutional Court ruled against
the family, allowing the investigation to
proceed. Five police officers (Harold Snyman,
Gideon Nieuwoudt, Ruben Marx, Daantjie Siebert,
and Johan Beneke) appeared before the Commission
and requested amnesty in return for information
about the events surrounding Biko's death.
In December 1998, the Commission refused amnesty
to the five men; this was because their accounts
were conflicting and thus deemed untruthful,
and because Biko's killing had no clear political
motive, but seemed to have been motivated
by "ill-will or spite". In October 2003, South
Africa's justice ministry announced that the
five policemen would not be prosecuted because
the statute of limitations had elapsed and
there was insufficient evidence to secure
a prosecution.
== Ideology ==
The ideas of the Black Consciousness Movement
were not developed solely by Biko, but through
lengthy discussions with other black students
who were rejecting white liberalism. Biko
was influenced by his reading of authors like
Frantz Fanon, Malcolm X, Léopold Sédar Senghor,
James Cone, and Paulo Freire. The Martinique-born
Fanon, in particular, has been cited as a
profound influence over Biko's ideas about
liberation. Biko's biographer Xolela Mangcu
cautioned that it would be wrong to reduce
Biko's thought to an interpretation of Fanon,
and that the impact of "the political and
intellectual history of the Eastern Cape"
had to be appreciated too. Additional influences
on Black Consciousness were the United States-based
Black Power movement, and forms of Christianity
like the activist-oriented black theology.
=== Black Consciousness and empowerment ===
Biko rejected the apartheid government's division
of South Africa's population into tribal and
ethnic groups, instead dividing the population
into two categories: the white and the black.
He defined blackness as a "mental attitude"
rather than a "matter of pigmentation", referring
to "blacks" as "those who are by law or tradition
politically, economically and socially discriminated
against as a group in the South African society"
and who identify "themselves as a unit in
the struggle towards the realization of their
aspirations". In this way, he and the Black
Consciousness Movement used "black" in reference
not only to Bantu-speaking Africans but also
to Coloureds and Indians, which together made
up almost 90% of South Africa's population
in the 1970s. Biko was not a Marxist and believed
that it was oppression based on race, rather
than class, which would be the main political
motivation for change in South Africa. He
argued that those on the "white left" often
promoted a class-based analysis as a "defence
mechanism... primarily because they want to
detach us from anything relating to race.
In case it has a rebound effect on them because
they are white".
Biko saw white racism in South Africa as the
totality of the white power structure. He
argued that under apartheid, white people
not only participated in the oppression of
black people but were also the main voices
in opposition to that oppression. He thus
argued that in dominating both the apartheid
system and the anti-apartheid movement, white
people totally controlled the political arena,
leaving black people marginalised. He believed
white people were able to dominate the anti-apartheid
movement because of their access to resources,
education, and privilege. He noted that white
South Africans were poorly suited to this
role because they had not personally experienced
the oppression that their black counterparts
faced.Biko and his comrades regarded multi-racial
anti-apartheid groups as unwittingly replicating
the structure of apartheid because they contained
whites in dominant positions of control, and
therefore did not participate in these multi-racial
organisations. Instead, they called for an
anti-apartheid programme that was controlled
by black people. Biko nevertheless believed
that sympathetic whites had a place in the
anti-apartheid struggle; he called on them
to reject any concept that they themselves
could be spokespeople for the black majority
and instead focus their efforts on convincing
the wider white community on the inevitability
of apartheid's fall. Biko clarified his position
to Woods: "I don't reject liberalism as such
or white liberals as such. I reject only the
concept that black liberation can be achieved
through the leadership of white liberals."
He added that "the [white] liberal is no enemy,
he's a friend – but for the moment he holds
us back, offering a formula too gentle, too
inadequate for our struggle".Biko's approach
to activism focused on psychological empowerment,
and both he and the BCM saw their main purpose
as combating the feeling of inferiority that
most black South Africans experienced. Biko
expressed dismay at how "the black man has
become a shell, a shadow of man ... bearing
the yoke of oppression with sheepish timidity",
and stated that "the most potent weapon in
the hands of the oppressor is the mind of
the oppressed". He believed that blacks needed
to affirm their own humanity by overcoming
their fears and believing themselves worthy
of freedom and its attendant responsibilities.
He defined Black Consciousness as "an inward-looking
process" that would "infuse people with pride
and dignity". To promote this, the BCM adopted
the slogan "Black is Beautiful".One of the
ways that Biko and the BCM sought to achieve
psychological empowerment was through community
development. Community projects were seen
not only as a way to alleviate poverty in
black communities but also as a means of transforming
society psychologically, culturally, and economically.
They would also help students to learn about
the "daily struggles" of ordinary black people
and to spread Black Consciousness ideas among
the population. Among the projects that SASO
set its members to conduct in the holidays
were repairs to schools, house-building, and
instructions on financial management and agricultural
techniques. Healthcare was also a priority,
with SASO members focusing on primary and
preventative care.
=== Foreign and domestic relations ===
Biko opposed any collaboration with the apartheid
government, such as the agreements that the
Coloured and Indian communities made with
the regime. In his view, the Bantustan system
was "the greatest single fraud ever invented
by white politicians", stating that it was
designed to divide the Bantu-speaking African
population along tribal lines. He openly criticised
the Zulu leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, stating
that the latter's co-operation with the South
African government "[diluted] the cause" of
black liberation. He believed that those fighting
apartheid in South Africa should link with
anti-colonial struggles elsewhere in the world
and with activists in the global African diaspora
combating racial prejudice and discrimination.
He also hoped that foreign countries would
boycott South Africa's economy.Biko believed
that while apartheid and white-minority rule
continued, "sporadic outbursts" of violence
against the white minority were inevitable.
He wanted to avoid violence, stating that
"if at all possible, we want the revolution
to be peaceful and reconciliatory". He noted
that views on violence differed widely within
the BCM—which contained both pacifists and
believers in violent revolution—although
the group had agreed to operate peacefully,
and unlike the PAC and ANC, had no armed wing.A
staunch anti-imperialist, Biko saw the South
African situation as a "microcosm" of the
broader "black–white power struggle" which
manifests as "the global confrontation between
the Third World and the rich white nations
of the world". He was suspicious of the Soviet
Union's motives in supporting African liberation
movements, relating that "Russia is as imperialistic
as America"; he also noted that "in the eyes
of the Third World they have a cleaner slate".
He also acknowledged that the material assistance
provided by the Soviets was "more valuable"
to the anti-apartheid cause than the "speeches
and wrist-slapping" provided by Western governments.
He was cautious of the possibility of a post-apartheid
South Africa getting caught up in the imperialist
Cold War rivalries of the United States and
the Soviet Union.
=== On a post-apartheid society ===
Biko hoped that a future socialist South Africa
could become a completely non-racial society,
with people of all ethnic backgrounds living
peacefully together in a "joint culture" that
combined the best of all communities. He did
not support guarantees of minority rights,
believing that doing so would continue to
recognise divisions along racial lines. Instead
he supported a one person, one vote system.
Initially arguing that one-party states were
appropriate for Africa, he developed a more
positive view of multi-party systems after
conversations with Woods. He saw individual
liberty as desirable, but regarded it as a
lesser priority than access to food, employment,
and social security.
Biko was neither a communist nor capitalist.
Described as a proponent of African socialism,
he called for "a socialist solution that is
an authentic expression of black communalism".
This idea was derided by some of his Marxist
contemporaries, but later found parallels
in the ideas of the Mexican Zapatistas. Noting
that there was significant inequality in the
distribution of wealth in South Africa, Biko
believed that a socialist society was necessary
to ensure social justice. In his view, this
required a move towards a mixed economy that
allowed private enterprise but in which all
land was owned by the state and in which state
industries played a significant part in forestry,
mining, and commerce. He believed that, if
post-apartheid South Africa remained capitalist,
some black people would join the bourgeoisie
but inequality and poverty would remain. As
he put it, if South Africa transitioned to
proportional democracy without socialist economic
reforms, then "it would not change the position
of economic oppression of the blacks".In conversation
with Woods, Biko insisted that the BCM would
not degenerate into anti-white racism "because
it isn't a negative, hating thing. It's a
positive black self-confidence thing involving
no hatred of anyone". He acknowledged that
a "fringe element" may retain "anti-white
bitterness"; he added: "we'll do what we can
to restrain that, but frankly it's not one
of our top priorities or one of our major
concerns. Our main concern is the liberation
of the blacks." Elsewhere, Biko argued that
it was the responsibility of a vanguard movement
to ensure that, in a post-apartheid society,
the black majority would not seek vengeance
upon the white minority. He stated that this
would require an education of the black population
in order to teach them how to live in a non-racial
society.
== Personality and personal life ==
Tall and slim in his youth, by his twenties
Biko was over six feet tall, with the "bulky
build of a heavyweight boxer carrying more
weight than when in peak condition", according
to Woods. His friends regarded him as "handsome,
fearless, a brilliant thinker". Woods saw
him as "unusually gifted ... His quick brain,
superb articulation of ideas and sheer mental
force were highly impressive." According to
Biko's friend Trudi Thomas, with Biko "you
had a remarkable sense of being in the presence
of a great mind". Woods felt that Biko "could
enable one to share his vision" with "an economy
of words" because "he seemed to communicate
ideas through extraverbal media – almost
psychically." Biko exhibited what Woods referred
to as "a new style of leadership", never proclaiming
himself to be a leader and discouraging any
cult of personality from growing up around
him. Other activists did regard him as a leader
and often deferred to him at meetings. When
engaged in conversations, he displayed an
interest in listening and often drew out the
thoughts of others.
Biko and many others in his activist circle
had an antipathy toward luxury items because
most South African blacks could not afford
them. He owned few clothes and dressed in
a low-key manner. He had a large record collection
and particularly liked gumba. He enjoyed parties,
and according to his biographer Linda Wilson,
he often drank substantial quantities of alcohol.
Religion did not play a central role in his
life. He was often critical of the established
Christian churches, but remained a believer
in God and found meaning in the Gospels. Woods
described him as "not conventionally religious,
although he had genuine religious feeling
in broad terms". Mangcu noted that Biko was
critical of organised religion and denominationalism
and that he was "at best an unconventional
Christian".The Nationalist government portrayed
Biko as a hater of whites, but he had several
close white friends, and both Woods and Wilson
insisted that he was not a racist. Woods related
that Biko "simply wasn't a hater of people",
and that he did not even hate prominent National
Party politicians like B. J. Vorster and Andries
Treurnicht, instead hating their ideas. It
was rare and uncharacteristic of him to display
any rage, and was rare for him to tell people
about his doubts and inner misgivings, reserving
those for a small number of confidants.Biko
never addressed questions of gender and sexism
in his politics. The sexism was evident in
many ways, according to Mamphela Ramphele,
a BCM activist and doctor at the Zanempilo
Clinic, including that women tended to be
given responsibility for the cleaning and
catering at functions. "There was no way you
could think of Steve making a cup of tea or
whatever for himself", another activist said.
Feminism was viewed as irrelevant "bra-burning".
Surrounded by women who cared about him, Biko
developed a reputation as a womaniser, something
that Woods described as "well earned". He
displayed no racial prejudice, sleeping with
both black and white women. At NUSAS, he and
his friends competed to see who could have
sex with the most female delegates. Responding
to this behaviour, the NUSAS general secretary
Sheila Lapinsky accused Biko of sexism, to
which he responded: "Don't worry about my
sexism. What about your white racist friends
in NUSAS?" Sobukwe also admonished Biko for
his womanising, believing that it set a bad
example to other activists.Biko married Ntsiki
Mashalaba in December 1970. They had two children
together: Nkosinathi, born in 1971, and Samora,
born in 1975. Biko's wife chose the name Nkosinathi
("The Lord is with us"), and Biko named their
second child after the Mozambican revolutionary
leader Samora Machel. Angered by her husband's
serial adultery, Mashalaba ultimately moved
out of their home, and by the time of his
death, she had begun divorce proceedings.
Biko had also begun an extra-marital relationship
with Mamphela Ramphele. In 1974, she bore
him a daughter, Lerato, who died after two
months. A son, Hlumelo, was born to Ramphele
in 1978, after Biko's death. Biko was also
in a relationship with Lorrain Tabane, who
bore him a child named Motlatsi in 1977.
== Legacy ==
=== Influence ===
Biko is viewed as the "father" of the Black
Consciousness Movement and the anti-apartheid
movement's first icon. Nelson Mandela called
him "the spark that lit a veld fire across
South Africa", adding that the Nationalist
government "had to kill him to prolong the
life of apartheid". Opening an anthology of
his work in 2008, Manning Marable and Peniel
Joseph wrote that his death had "created a
vivid symbol of black resistance" to apartheid
that "continues to inspire new black activists"
over a decade after the transition to majority
rule. Johann de Wet, a professor of communication
studies, described him as "one of South Africa's
most gifted political strategists and communicators".
In 2004 he was elected 13th in SABC 3's Great
South Africans public poll.Although Biko's
ideas have not received the same attention
as Frantz Fanon's, Ahluwalia and Zegeye wrote
in 2001 that the men shared "a highly similar
pedigree in their interests in the philosophical
psychology of consciousness, their desire
for a decolonising of the mind, the liberation
of Africa and in the politics of nationalism
and socialism for the 'wretched of the earth'".
Academics argue that Biko's thought remains
relevant; for example, in African Identities
in 2015, Isaac Kamola wrote that Biko's critique
of white liberalism was relevant to situations
like the United Nations' Millennium Development
Goals and Invisible Children, Inc.'s KONY
2012 campaign.
Woods held the view that Biko had filled the
vacuum within the country's African nationalist
movement that arose in the late 1960s following
the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela and the
banning of Sobukwe. Following Biko's death,
the Black Consciousness Movement declined
in influence as the ANC emerged as a resurgent
force in anti-apartheid politics. This brought
about a shift in focus from the BCM's community
organising to wider mass mobilisation, including
attempts to follow Tambo's call to make South
Africa "ungovernable", which involved increasing
violence and clashes between rival anti-apartheid
groups.Followers of Biko's ideas re-organised
as the Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO),
which subsequently split into the Socialist
Party of Azania and the Black People's Convention.
Several figures associated with the ANC denigrated
Biko during the 1980s. For instance, members
of the ANC-affiliated United Democratic Front
assembled outside Biko's Ginsberg home shouting
U-Steve Biko, I-CIA!, an allegation that Biko
was a spy for the United States' Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA). These demonstrations resulted
in clashes with Biko supporters from AZAPO.A
year after Biko's death, his "Frank Talk"
writings were published as an edited collection,
I Write What I Like. The defence that Biko
provided for arrested SASO activists was used
as the basis for the 1978 book The Testimony
of Steve Biko, edited by Millard Arnold. Woods
fled to England that year, where he campaigned
against apartheid and further publicised Biko's
life and death, writing many newspaper articles
about him, as well as a book, Biko (1978).
This was made into the 1987 film Cry Freedom
by Richard Attenborough, starring Denzel Washington
as Biko. Many film critics and Black Consciousness
proponents were concerned that the film foregrounded
white characters like Woods over Biko himself,
but Cry Freedom brought Biko's life and activism
to a wider audience. The state censors initially
permitted its release in South Africa, but
after it began screening in the country's
cinemas, copies were confiscated by police
on the order of Police Commissioner General
Hendrik de Wit, who claimed that it would
inflame tensions and endanger public safety.
The South African government banned many books
about Biko, including those of Arnold and
Woods.
=== Commemoration ===
Biko was commemorated in several artworks
after his death. Gerard Sekoto, a South African
artist based in France, produced Homage to
Steve Biko in 1978, and another South African
artist, Peter Stopforth, included a work entitled
The Interrogators in his 1979 exhibition.
A triptych, it depicted the three police officers
implicated in Biko's death. Kenya released
a commemorative postage stamp featuring Biko's
face.Biko's death also inspired several songs,
including from artists outside South Africa
such as Tom Paxton and Peter Hammill. The
English singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel released
"Biko" in tribute to him, which was a hit
single in 1980, and was banned in South Africa
soon after. Along with other anti-apartheid
music, the song helped to integrate anti-apartheid
themes into Western popular culture. Biko's
life was also commemorated through theatre.
The inquest into his death was dramatised
as a play, The Biko Inquest, first performed
in London in 1978; a 1984 performance was
directed by Albert Finney and broadcast on
television. Anti-apartheid activists used
Biko's name and memory in their protests;
in 1979, a mountaineer climbed the spire of
Grace Cathedral in San Francisco to unfurl
a banner with the names of Biko and imprisoned
Black Panther Party leader Geronimo Pratt
on it.Following apartheid's collapse, Woods
raised funds to commission a bronze statue
of Biko from Naomi Jacobson. It was erected
outside the front door of city hall in East
London on the Eastern cape, opposite a statue
commemorating British soldiers killed in the
Second Boer War. Over 10,000 people attended
the monument's unveiling in September 1997.
In the following months it was vandalised
several times; in one instance it was daubed
with the letters "AWB", an acronym of the
Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, a far-right
Afrikaner paramilitary group. In 1997, the
cemetery where Biko was buried was renamed
the Steve Biko Garden of Remembrance. The
District Six Museum also held an exhibition
of artwork marking the 20th anniversary of
his death by examining his legacy.
Also in September 1997, Biko's family established
the Steve Biko Foundation. The Ford Foundation
donated money to the group to establish a
Steve Biko Centre in Ginsberg, opened in 2012.
The Foundation launched its annual Steve Biko
Memorial Lecture in 2000, each given by a
prominent black intellectual. The first speaker
was Njabulo Ndebele; later speakers included
Zakes Mda, Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o,
and Mandela.Buildings, institutes and public
spaces around the world have been named after
Biko, such as the Steve Bikoplein in Amsterdam.
In 2008, the Pretoria Academic Hospital was
renamed the Steve Biko Hospital. The University
of the Witwatersrand has a Steve Biko Centre
for Bioethics. In Salvador, Bahia, a Steve
Biko Institute was established to promote
educational attainment among poor Afro-Brazilians.
In 2012, the Google Cultural Institute published
an online archive containing documents and
photographs owned by the Steve Biko Foundation.
On 18 December 2016, Google marked what would
have been Biko's 70th birthday with a Google
Doodle.Amid the dismantling of apartheid in
the early 1990s, various political parties
competed over Biko's legacy, with several
saying they were the party that Biko would
support if he were still alive. AZAPO in particular
claimed exclusive ownership over Black Consciousness.
In 1994, the ANC issued a campaign poster
suggesting that Biko had been a member of
their party, which was untrue. Following the
end of apartheid when the ANC formed the government,
they were accused of appropriating his legacy.
In 2002, AZAPO issued a statement declaring
that "Biko was not a neutral, apolitical and
mythical icon" and that the ANC was "scandalously"
using Biko's image to legitimise their "weak"
government. Members of the ANC have also criticised
AZAPO's attitude to Biko; in 1997, Mandela
said that "Biko belongs to us all, not just
AZAPO." On the anniversary of Biko's death
in 2015, delegations from both the ANC and
the Economic Freedom Fighters independently
visited his grave. In March 2017, the South
African President Jacob Zuma laid a wreath
at Biko's grave to mark Human Rights Day.
== See also ==
List of people subject to banning orders under
apartheid
