Home

Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko remembered

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Thursday marks 42 years since Black Consciousness leader, Steve Bantu Biko, died in detention. According to SA History Online, Biko was a popular voice of Black liberation in South Africa between the mid-1960s and his death in police detention in 1977.

According to his biography, Biko was arrested four times in the late 1970s and detained for several months at a time.

He was arrested in Port Elizabeth in August 1977. A month later on September 11, Biko was found naked and shackled several kilometres away in Pretoria.

He died from a brain haemorrhage the following day on September 12, 1977. It was later discovered that the haemorrhage resulted from the injuries he had sustained while in police custody. Biko’s death caused national outrage.

 

Author

MOST READ