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Umfanekiso kaStephen Bantu Biko. Photo by Unknown. .

Top 10 Interesting Facts about Steve Biko

Steve Biko was a South African anti-apartheid activist. He was at the forefront of anti-apartheid movement at the grassroot levels. Steve Biko’s philosophy of black consciousness focused primarily on liberating the minds of Black people who had been relegated to an inferior status by white power structures.

Steve Biko was born on 18 December 1946, at his grandmother’s house in Tarkastad, Eastern Cape. He was the third child of Mzingaye Mathew Biko and Alice ‘Mamcete’ Biko. He was naturally a very smart person. This helped through school very fast.

He left a very huge mark in the South African anti-apartheid movement. ‘At the heart of this thinking is the realization by blacks that the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.’ Biko’s words in relation to the black consciousness movement. Here are the top 10 Interesting Facts about Steve Biko.

1. His black consciousness philosophy was influenced by several people

Steve Biko. Stained glass window by Daan Wildschut in the Saint Anna Church, Heerlen (the Netherlands), ca. 1976. Photo by Serg茅 Technau.

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, L茅opold S茅dar 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.

2. Biko had several lovers

In 1970, Biko married Ntsiki Mashalaba. The couple later had two children together: sons Nkosinathi and Samora. Biko also had two children with Mamphela Ramphele, an active member of the Black Consciousness Movement: daughter Lerato, who was born in 1974 and died of pneumonia at 2 months old, and son Hlumelo, born in 1978. Additionally, Biko had a child with Lorraine Tabane in 1977, a daughter named Motlatsi.

3. He died from injuries incurred in prison

Steven Bantu Biko’s Grave in King Williams Town, South Africa. Photo by Socrammm. Wikimedia Commons.

During the late 1970s, Biko was arrested four times and detained for several months at a time. In August 1977, he was arrested and held in Port Elizabeth, located at the southern tip of South Africa.

The following month, on September 11, Biko was found naked and shackled several miles away, in Pretoria, South Africa. He died the following day, on September 12, 1977, from a brain hemorrhage鈥攍ater determined to be the result of injuries he had sustained while in police custody. He died at the age of 30.

4. His death inspired many songs

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. It 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 dramatized as a play, The Biko Inquest, first performed in London in 1978; a 1984 performance was directed by Albert Finney and broadcast on television.

5. Biko co-founded the South African Students’ Organization

SASO was founded in 1968. This was an all-Black student organization focusing on the resistance of apartheid, and subsequently spearheaded the newly started Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa.

Biko became SASO’s president in 1969. SASO was created to represent the interests of Black students in the then University of Natal (later KwaZulu-Natal). It was a direct response to what Biko saw as the inaction of the National Union of South African Students in representing the needs of Black students.

6. Steve Biko was expelled because of his activism

In 1972, he was expelled from the University of Natal due to his political activism. Earlier, he attended a prestigious boarding school in Lovedale. He was expelled after three months for his political activities.

7. Former police officers later confessed to killing Biko

The police officers who had held Biko were questioned after his death. However, none of them was charged with any official crimes. Two decades after Biko’s death, in 1997, five former officers confessed to killing Biko.

The officers reportedly filed applications for amnesty to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after investigations implicated them in Biko’s death, but amnesty was denied in 1999.

8. The philosophy of black consciousness

Steve Biko plaque. Photo by Megalit. .

The movement viewed the liberation of the mind as the primary weapon in the fight for freedom in South Africa. Black consciousness was defined as an inward-looking process, where Black people regained the pride stripped away from them by the Apartheid system. 

The Black Consciousness Movement centered on race as a determining factor in the oppression of Black people in South Africa. 鈥楤lack鈥� as defined by Biko was not limited to Africans, but also included Asians and 鈥榗oloureds鈥� (South Africans of mixed race including African, European and/or Asian origin).

9. He was banned by the apartheid government

In early 1973, the government tried to silence Biko by prohibiting him from speaking in public or from talking to more than one person at a time. He was not allowed to leave the Eastern Cape province and he was forbidden from writing publicly or speaking to journalists.

However, Biko resisted by forming local grassroots groups and organizing rallies. A speech he made as a defense witness in May 1967 has been described as a 鈥渟eminar on Black Consciousness鈥�. This was the first time he had spoken in public since being banned.

10. Nelson Mandela recognized his effort in the anti-apartheid movement

Nelson Mandela. Photo by John Matthew Smith. .

In 2002, Nelson Mandela said of Biko: Living, he was the spark that lit a veld fire across South Africa. His message to the youth and students was simple and clear: Black is Beautiful! Be proud of your Blackness! “And with that he inspired our youth to shed themselves of the sense of inferiority they were born into as a result of more than three hundred years of white rule.”