Steve Biko was one of five children born to Mzingaye Biko and Nokuzola Macethe Duna.
When Biko was four years old his dad died and his mum supported her kids on the money she earned as a cook.
In the early 1950s, Biko attended Charles Morgan Higher Primary School in King William's Town, Eastern Cape. At first he was put into Standard 3 (today’s Grade 5), but his outstanding intelligence saw him rapidly promoted through the grades.
It was when he reached high school that Biko’s political activism for the liberation of black people put him on a collision course with authorities. He was expelled, eventually matriculating from St Francis College in the Eastern Cape in 1966.
Biko then started studying to become a doctor at the University of Natal Medical School. At first he worked with the multiracial National Union of South African Students to fight apartheid.
In 1968 Biko co-founded a blacks-only student organisation called the South African Students’ Organisation (Saso), becoming its president in 1969.
Three years later, his activism resulted in him being expelled from the University of Natal.
Biko married Ntsiki Mashalaba in 1970. He went on to have two kids with her, and three kids by two other women.
By 1973 Biko was firmly on the radar of the apartheid police. His freedoms were severely restricted and in the late 1970’s, he was arrested four times and detained for several months. At this time, he and other thinkers had developed the theory of Black Consciousness, which encourages unity among black people and the recognition of a shared identity.
Some of his writings on this were published after his death in 1978 in a book called I Write What I Like.
In 1977 Biko was arrested and held in Port Elizabeth. On 11 September, he was mysteriously found naked and shackled in Pretoria. He died the following day.
Cops claimed at the time he died from a hunger strike. Only years later did the extent of the torture he endured at the hands of the cops become clear.
His death threw the country into a crisis, with massive uprisings and outpourings of anger against the apartheid regime. He remains an icon as a black intellectual with exceptional courage for many.
