Steve+Biko


 * Stephen Bantu Biko was born December 18, 1946. He was an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960’s and the 1970’s. Biko was the son of Matthew Mzingaye and Alice Nakuzola Biko. Their family came from very harsh beginnings. Biko’s father served in the police force before getting a job as a government clerk. When Steve was just four years old, his father passed away. From that point on, the only influence that Biko had in his life was his mother. **


 * At the age of fifteen, Biko was admitted to Lovedale College, a missionary institution. Later that year, he was accused of being a supporter of the outlawed Pan African Congress (PAC). All of this nonsense made him have a hatred for the authority. In 1964, he was admitted to another missionary school called St. Francis College. There he studied and focused on the contradictions between Christian liberal teachings and the experience of black people. As a student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. **


 * During Biko’s later years, he became a published author. He wrote I Write What I Like and The Testimony of Steve Biko. Both of these books were meant to state his opinions about the Black Consciousness Movement. He was not alone in forging the Black Consciousness Movement; he was, however, its most prominent leader, who, with others, guided the movement of student discontent. **


 * Later on, Steve Biko was put in jail due to leading the Black Consciousness Movement. On September 12,1977 Steve Biko died in a prison cell in Pretoria. That following day people found out about his death and had started an international and national protest in his honor. Fellow South Africans were devastated to find out that he was gone. Now Steve was not the only South African to die under the control of South African police officers but, being a leader of the Black Consciousness Movement captured the attention of many South Africans and people around the world. **