Steve Biko

Steve Biko (1946-1977), a political activist and writer, is regarded as the father of the Black Consciousness movement in the Union of South Africa.

Stephen Bantu Biko (a. k. a. Bantu Stephen Biko) was born in King Williamstown, Cape Province, South Africa, on December 18, 1946. He was the second son (third child) of Mzimgayi Biko. Raised and educated in a Christian home, Biko eventually became a student at Wentworth, a White medical school in Durban. There in 1968 he formed SASO (South African Students' Organization), an activist group seeking equal rights for South African black people. Expelled from Wentworth in 1972 (the stated cause being poor academic performance), Biko devoted his time to activist activities. His concept of black consciousness continued to develop as he next went to work for BCP (Black Community Programmes). By 1973 his political activities had caused him to be banned from Durban and restricted to his hometown. Back in King Williamstown, undaunted, he set up a new branch of BCP - only to have it banned there as well

Still, Biko continued to work for black consciousness. This led to repeated detentions and caused him to be placed in security over and over again. Yet he was never charged. In 1977 he became honorary president of the Black People's Convention he had founded in 1972. His appointment was to be for a period of five years, but nine months later he died of brain damage after being beaten by police officers while in detention.

Biko's short 30-year life was consumed with the development of an acute awareness of the evils of apartheid, the social system under which non-Whites lived in South Africa. Apartheid is based on the idea of institutionalized separate development for blacks and whites. To paraphrase Biko, he was able to outgrow the things the system had taught him. One of his unique characteristics may be summed up in the title of an edited collection of his writings, I Write What I Like (1978, Aelred Stubbs, ed.). Much of what Biko "liked to write," not surprisingly, dealt with the definition of black consciousness and setting it out as an approach to combatting White racism in South Africa. Indeed the very phrase "I write what I like" was boldly used as a heading to begin many of his political essays. One such essay was accompanied by the by-line "Frank Talk," an aptly chosen pseudonym.

A magnetic, eloquent, tall, and large-proportioned person, Biko inspired love and loyalty. In 1970 he married Ntsiki Mashalaba, then a nursing student in Durban. When the couple had been restricted to King Williamstown, Ntsiki commuted to work at an Anglican mission 35 miles away in order to earn money to keep the family together. Biko's father died when he was four years old. His mother courageously supported her son's activities, welcomed him home during the years of restriction, helped protect him from the inquiring eyes of government security forces, and provided a Christian (Anglican) home environment for his children.

Biko's death echoed around the world - an irony, given the repeated attempts made to silence him while he lived. As a leader of South African blacks, Biko is likened in importance to others such as Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe who preceded him. Like Biko, their influence was during the post-1948 years - that is, after the African National Congress began to gain support throughout the nation in the interest of black liberation. Mandela and Sobukwe, too, were repeatedly banned and imprisoned. In fact, it was while they were in detention in the 1960s that Biko formed SASO to fill the "vacuum in South African politics" that they had left.

Biko's "Black Consciousness" was a call to black young people to dissociate white control and black fear in South Africa and to adopt an attitude of psychological self-reliance in the struggle for liberation from white rule. The proponents of Black Consciousness urged blacks to withdraw from multiracial organizations. The resulting formation of the all-black SASO alienated some white liberal students - particularly those who belonged to NUSA (National Union of South African Students). These students' idealism was given a jolt by SASO's assertion of an independent black struggle.

The concept of Black Consciousness has been preserved in Biko's writings and in transcripts taken in the BPCSASO trial at which Biko was called to testify, allowing him to break a three-year imposed silence. This trial was the only opportunity Biko had to speak out after 1973 when his travel, public speaking, and writing for publication had been banned. The trial also turned out to be the last time Biko was heard from before his death in Port Elizabeth on September 12, 1977.

The South African government disclaimed any responsibility in Biko's death, and official pronouncements about its circumstances revolve around talk of a hunger strike while others cite evidence of beatings. Twenty years later, in 1997, five former police officers acknowledged responsibility for his death of a brain hemorrhage. The officers made their confession to South Africa's Truth Commission, which has the power to grant amnesty to individuals willing to reveal their role in the violence against anti-apartheid activists.

The effect of Biko's death, seen by many as symbolic of black South Africa suffering under apartheid and the most widely publicized dramatization of the apartheid system in operation, added impetus to Black Consciousness - the very movement that repeated bannings and restrictions by government officials sought to quell. The idea of Black Consciousness is thought by many to have uplifted and inspired South African black people and to have given direction to their lives.

To Biko, black psychological self-reliance was the path to social equality. His vision of the future for South African blacks was one "looking forward to a nonracial, just and egalitarian society in which color, creed, and race shall form no point of reference." Many hoped Biko's dream would become reality when apartheid was disbanded and in 1994, ANC leader Nelson Mandela was elected president of the country.

Further Reading

For a description of Biko's last public appearance as a witness for the defense in the Trial of Sathasivan Cooper and Eight Others (a.k.a. the BPC-SASO trial), see Millard Arnold (ed.), Steve Biko: Black Consciousness in South Africa (1978). This book consists primarily of court transcripts and affords the reader the opportunity to read Biko's views right before he died and the first expressed after three years of silence. For a biography of Biko written by a close friend, see Biko by Donald Woods (1978). Biko's writings have been collected in Fr. Aelred Stubbs, c.r. (ed.) Steve Biko-I Write What I Like (London, 1978). Newspapers all over the world after September 12, 1977, reported Biko's death.

activist

Personal Information

Born Steven Bantu Biko (some sources cite given name as Stephen), December 18, 1946, in King William's Town, South Africa; died of severe head injuries, September 12, 1977; married Mamphela Ramphele.
Education: Graduated from St. Francis College, Natal, South Africa, 1966; attended Natal University.

Career

Founder, Black Consciousness movement; founder and first president, South African Students' Organization, 1969; established Zimele Trust Fund (to help political prisoners and their families), 1975.

Life's Work

Black South African activist Steven Biko is perhaps best remembered for his grisly death. His imprisonment on capricious charges, the South African government's shocking announcement that he had died after hitting his head against a jail wall, and the exoneration of police officers later accused of beating him symbolized for many the viciousness and unscrupulousness of the country's apartheid regime. In 1977 the world conferred on Biko the status of martyr, a fallen hero who had given his life to the cause of racial justice in his divided homeland.

But South Africans saw more in his vibrant life than in his untimely death. In spite of the white minority government's efforts to silence him, Biko, while still in his twenties, became a near mythic figure in South Africa. He called upon black activists to dissociate themselves from white liberals and to form a new political movement grounded in racial pride and dignity. Biko believed that blacks needed to elevate their racial consciousness before meaningful social change could take place in South Africa; his views deeply altered the nature of the apartheid resistance.

Steven (sometimes spelled Stephen) Bantu Biko was born December 18, 1946, in King William's Town, along the eastern coast of South Africa. The son of a clerk and a housemaid, Biko was first exposed to the racial currents of his country in 1963. That year he was expelled from high school because of the political activities of his brother, who had been arrested and jailed in a nationwide police crackdown on "subversives." Biko was first sent to St. Francis College in Natal, a liberal boarding school from which he graduated in 1966. Next he enrolled at the black medical section of Natal University, placing him among the first handful of blacks in South Africa to attend a major university. In the mid-1960s Biko was thrust into the leadership vacuum created by the imprisonment of African National Congress (ANC) leader Nelson Mandela. Biko, who had been elected to the Students' Representative Council, had become involved with the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), a multi-racial group that had been attracting increasing numbers of members since the 1961 banning of the ANC and the Pan-Africanist Congress, but he quickly grew disenchanted with the group's leadership.

For many young blacks at the time, NUSAS had been growing alarmingly conservative. They accused the group of favoring impotent talk over action. Biko, an emerging leader of those alienated activists, saw a disabling weakness where NUSAS boosters saw one of the organization's greatest strengths. The problem, in Biko's eyes, was multiracialism--the united front of progressive whites and blacks loudly condemning a racist caste system. Recognizing that opposition groups over the years had done little to break, much less shake, the pillars of apartheid, Biko surmised that blacks had not sufficiently recognized the psychological prison in which the South African government had locked them. He argued that blacks needed a movement of their own, a political vehicle they could steer for their own spiritual uplifting.

According to Biko, although some white liberals were genuine in their opposition to apartheid, others, particularly those in leadership positions, merely paid lip service to the cause. Blacks, he said, had been conditioned to listen subserviently, even if the words were ineffective in stopping the subjugation. Leonard Thompson, author of A History of South Africa, quoted Biko as having written: "Black consciousness is in essence the realization by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their subjection--the blackness of their skin--and to operate as a group in order to rid themselves of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude.... It seeks to infuse the black community with a newfound pride in themselves, their efforts, their value systems, their culture, their religion, and their outlook to life. The interrelationship between the consciousness of self and the emancipatory programme is of paramount importance."

In 1969 Biko founded and became the first president of the South African Students' Organization, a spin-off of NUSAS that had as one of its central tenets the Black Consciousness philosophy that Biko had been articulating. At first Biko's spirited repudiation of white liberal activism as being short on action angered those whites who had always considered themselves unbending allies with blacks in the fight against apartheid. Biko argued that the most dedicated white liberal will not try to join the black activist camp, but will concentrate on preparing other whites for a future governmental system of majority rule. After the sting of rejection had subsided, many whites began to see wisdom in Biko's plea for black political self-reliance.

Biko traveled throughout the country issuing the clarion call that blacks needed to discover a sense of dignity within themselves and muster a spiritual strength to combat injustice. In 1973 the South African government, alarmed at the following this nonviolent revolutionary was attracting, tried to stop Biko in his tracks and halt the progress of the Black Consciousness movement.

Under house arrest, Biko was forbidden from speaking to more than one person at a time, denied the right to travel outside the King William's township, and could not be quoted in the press. But his words, usually disseminated in pamphlets and through surrogates, found audiences in the countryside. Indeed the governmental clamp merely intensified his celebrity status in South Africa and around the world. Aware of the importance that international pressure could play on the South African government--particularly economic leverage from the United States--Biko lamented in an interview published in the New Republic, "Many Americans just don't know where South Africa is, who [then-prime minister Balthazar] Vorster is. They couldn't be bothered right now. But then we are having, or we will have here, a Vietnam situation at some stage. There is no doubt about that if America continues the present policy." He added that individuals in the United States needed to build up their own "consciousness that lives of whole population groups are being brutalized by the system out here and that there is a complete exclusion of blacks from the political process, and what it means." In the mid-1970s, the United States, trying to protect Biko from a South African government infamous for silencing voices of dissent, indicated that he was one of the men Vorster had to meet with before the strained South African-American relations could improve.

But the South African government proved to be more worried about the domestic spread of Black Consciousness than about international political pressure. In 1976 thousands of black school children in Soweto protested against a government order that half their subjects be taught in Afrikaans, the Dutch-derived language of the South African whites. The young blacks felt studying the language of their oppressors would leave them at a great disadvantage; they wanted, instead, to devote more time to learning English, with which most of the world communicates. After the police killed a 13-year-old girl who was demonstrating, protests erupted throughout the country, and again the government responded with violence, killing at least 575 people, many of whom were under the age of 18.

On August 18, 1977, Biko was arrested at a security police roadblock under the country's notorious Terrorism Act, which allowed for the indefinite detention of anyone the state considered dangerous. The government claimed Biko was on his way to Cape Town to distribute pamphlets encouraging black violence against whites. Biko had been imprisoned before--in 1975 he was arrested and held 137 days without charge or trial--and he knew that at least 20 black political prisoners had died in jail within the past 18 months. These deaths were called suicides or the results of improbable accidents, such as slipping in the prison showers. Blacks along with white liberals pointed fingers at the police, but the government protected its own. Still, Biko believed that his prominence would shield him from so terrible a fate.

The next day he was moved to the police station in Port Elizabeth, where he was stripped--the police said they feared he would try to hang himself with a piece of clothing--and placed in a cell. On September 6, after being moved to the security police headquarters, Biko was handcuffed, put into leg irons, chained to a grille and subjected to 22 hours of interrogation--an interrogation that would become the stuff of unending speculation and dark legend. Several days later, as Biko drifted in and out of consciousness, he was thrown naked into the back of a police vehicle and taken 750 miles to the city of Pretoria.

Biko's death was announced seven days later, on September 13, by South African Justice Minister James Kruger; the clear implication was that the prisoner had died as a result of a hunger strike initiated on September 5. Skeptics immediately challenged that call, saying that Biko was too big and seemingly healthy--he weighed 200 pounds and stood six-foot two--to succumb to malnutrition so quickly. Also, Donald Woods, a liberal, white South African journalist whose friendship with Biko formed the basis of the 1987 film Cry Freedom, said that Biko had recently promised he would never go on a hunger strike and that it would be a lie if anyone ever said he had died that way. "Steven would never, never have cracked on that one," Newsweek quoted Woods as saying. When autopsies revealed severe brain damage, the police claimed that Biko had sustained head injuries during a scuffle he had started with them. Doctors brought in to examine the dying Biko in the prison cell had accepted the police explanation that the prisoner was faking his illness and therefore refrained from thoroughly evaluating his medical situation.

South African critics around the world immediately challenged the official version of events. The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Andrew Young, compared Biko's death to the late 1960s assassinations of former U.S. attorney general Robert Kennedy and American civil rights leader Martin Luther King. Political observers predicted that Biko's death and the ensuing transparent government cover-up would deepen the chasm between blacks and whites and could spark racial violence of unprecedented ferocity.

The government did its best to shut down demonstrations, in one case arresting 1200 students who, by gathering to mourn Biko, had violated a ban on unauthorized assemblies. A court inquest capped off what many felt was a sick political charade. A lawyer representing Biko's widow caught several police witnesses in glaring contradictions concerning such fundamentals as when, where, and how the prisoner had died. In one case, the chief interrogator, who claimed he had not told his superiors about Biko's injuries, was shown a memo he had written to his boss saying the head wounds had been "inflicted on" Biko, a phrase the interrogator dismissed as a play on words. The presiding magistrate, a civil servant with no legal training, absolved the police and the doctors of any wrongdoing. Again global criticism poured in, including statements from the United States, traditionally silent on foreign court rulings. "We are shocked by the verdict in the face of compelling evidence at the least that Steven Biko was the victim of flagrant neglect and official irresponsibility," Newsweek quoted the U.S. State Department spokesman as having said. The subsequent prohibition of the South African Students' Organization, and the imprisonment of several black political leaders, caused the United Nations Security Council to vote for a mandatory arms embargo against South Africa.

Although the Black Consciousness movement is seen as having given way to a resurgent African National Congress, Biko is credited with having shaped the nature of political discourse and dissent in South Africa. Allister Sparks wrote in The Mind of South Africa that the movement's "impact among the 'coloureds' was enormous and lasting. Gone is the shame at the dark side of their parentage. Gone, too, is the fawning desire to be patronized by whites. Instead there is a positive, almost vehement, rejection of the white community and a growing identification with the black cause. The change is partly emotional and partly a matter of political judgment. 'Coloureds' can see which way the political wind is blowing in South Africa."

Further Reading

Books

• Reader's Digest Illustrated History of South Africa: The Real Story, The Reader's Digest Association, Inc., 1988.
• Sparks, Allister, The Mind of South Africa, Alfred A. Knopf, 1990.
• Thompson, Leonard, A History of South Africa, Yale University Press, 1990.

• Nation, October 15, 1977.
• New Republic, January 7, 1978.
• Newsweek, September 26, 1977; December 12, 1977.
• New York Times, April 30, 1978.
• Time, September 26, 1977; November 28, 1977.

— Isaac Rosen

Quotes:

"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."

"The power of a movement lies in the fact that it can indeed change the habits of people. This change is not the result of force but of dedication, of moral persuasion."

Stephen Biko[1]
Born	December 18, 1946(1946-12-18) King William's Town, South Africa
Died	September 12, 1977 (aged 30) Pretoria, South Africa
Occupation	anti-apartheid activist
Spouse(s)	Ntsiki Mashalaba
Children	Nkosinathi Biko, Samora Biko, Motlatsi Biko and Hlumelo Biko[citation needed]

Stephen Bantu Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977)^[1] was a noted anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the anti-apartheid movement.^[2] While living, his writings and activism attempted to empower black people, and he was famous for his slogan "black is beautiful", which he described as meaning: "man, you are okay as you are, begin to look upon yourself as a human being".^[3] Despite friction between the ANC and Biko throughout the 1970s^{[Need quotation on talk to verify]} the ANC has included Biko in the pantheon of struggle heroes, going as far as using his image for campaign posters in South Africa's first non-racial elections in 1994.^[4]

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Death and aftermath 2 Influences and formation of ideology 3 Biko's relevance in the present 4 Tributes 5 References in the arts 5.1 Literature 5.2 Theatre, film and television 5.3 Music 5.4 Paintings 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links

Biography

Biko was born in King William's Town, in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. He was a student at the University of Natal.^[1]

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He was initially involved with the multiracial National Union of South African Students, but after he became convinced that Black, Indian and Coloured students needed an organization of their own, he helped found the South African Students' Organisation (SASO) in 1968, and was elected its first president. SASO evolved into the influential Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). Biko was also involved with the World Student Christian Federation.

Ntsiki Mashalaba, Biko's wife,^[5] was also a prominent thinker within the Black Consciousness Movement.

Ntsiki and Biko had two children together: Nkosinathi and Samora. He also had a daughter with Lorraine Tabane, named Motlatsi, born in May 1977 and a son, Hlumelo, with Dr Mamphela Ramphele (a prominent activist within the BCM), who was born in 1978, after Biko's death. In 1972 Biko became honourary president of the Black People's Convention. He was banned during the height of apartheid in March 1973, meaning that he was not allowed to speak to more than one person at a time, was restricted to certain areas, and could not make speeches in public. It was also forbidden to quote anything he said, including speeches or simple conversations. Biko was a Xhosa. In addition to Xhosa, he spoke fluent English and fairly fluent Afrikaans.

When Biko was banned, his movement within the country was restricted to the Eastern Cape, where he was born. After returning there, he formed a number of grassroots organizations based on the notion of self-reliance, including a community clinic, Zanempilo, the Zimele Trust Fund (which helped support former political prisoners and their families), Njwaxa Leather-Works Project and the Ginsberg Education Fund.

In spite of the repression of the apartheid government, Biko and the BCM played a significant role in organising the protests which culminated in the Soweto Uprising of 16 June, 1976. In the aftermath of the uprising, which was crushed by heavily armed police shooting school children protesting, the authorities began to target Biko further.

Death and aftermath

The Rand Daily Mail story, authored by Zille, that exposed the cover-up of anti-apartheid activist Biko's death in police custody.

On 21 August, 1977, Biko was arrested at a police roadblock under the Terrorism Act No 83 of 1967 and interrogated by officers of the Port Elizabeth security police in the Police Room 619 (sometimes numbered as 6-1-9), including Harold Snyman and Gideon Nieuwoudt. He suffered a major head injury while in police custody, and was chained to a window grille for a day. On 11 September, 1977 police loaded him in the back of a Land Rover, naked, and began the 1 500 km drive to Pretoria to take him to a prison with hospital facilities. However, he was nearly dead due to the previous injuries.^[6] He died shortly after arrival at the Pretoria prison, on 12 September. The police claimed his death was the result of an extended hunger strike. He was found to have massive injuries to the head, which many saw as strong evidence that he had been brutally clubbed by his captors. Then journalist and now political leader, Helen Zille, along with Donald Woods, another journalist, editor and close friend of Biko's, exposed the truth behind Biko's death.^[7]

Because of his fame, news of Biko's death spread quickly, opening many eyes around the world to the brutality of the apartheid regime. His funeral was attended by over 10,000 people, including numerous ambassadors and other diplomats from the United States and Western Europe. The liberal white South African journalist Donald Woods, a personal friend of Biko, photographed his injuries in the morgue. Woods was later forced to flee South Africa for England, where he campaigned against apartheid and further publicised Biko's life and death, writing many newspaper articles and authoring the book, Biko.^[8] On hearing the news of Steve Biko's death in police custody, South African Minister of Justice, Jimmy Kruger, simply declared in a speech that the incident "left him cold".

The following year, on 2 February 1978, the Attorney General of the Eastern Cape stated that he would not prosecute any police involved in the arrest and detention of Biko. During the trial, it was claimed that Biko's head injuries were the result of a self-inflicted suicide attempt, not those of any beatings. The judge ultimately ruled that a murder charge could not be supported partly because there were no witnesses to the killing. Charges of culpable homicide and assault were also considered, but because the killing occurred in 1977, the time limit for prosecution had expired.^[9]

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was created following the end of minority rule and the apartheid system, reported in 1997 that five former members of the South African security forces had admitted to killing Biko were applying for amnesty.

On 7 October, 2003 the South African Justice Ministry officials announced that the five policemen accused of killing Biko would not be prosecuted, because there was insufficient evidence, and because the time limit for prosecution had elapsed.

Stephen Biko authored a book titled: I Write What I Like.

In 2004, he was voted 13th in the SABC3's Great South Africans.

Influences and formation of ideology

Like Frantz Fanon, Biko originally studied medicine, and, like Fanon, Biko developed an intense concern for the development of black consciousness as a solution to the existential struggles which shape existence, both as a human and as an African (see Négritude). Biko can thus be seen as a follower of Fanon and Aimé Césaire, in contrast to more multi-racialist ANC leaders such as Nelson Mandela after his imprisonment at Robben Island, and Albert Luthuli who were first disciples of Gandhi.^{[10][11][12][13]}

Biko saw the struggle to restore African consciousness as having two stages, "Psychological liberation" and "Physical liberation". The nonviolent influence of Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. upon Biko is then suspect, as Biko knew that for his struggle to give rise to physical liberation, it was necessary that it exist within the political realities of the apartheid regime, and Biko's nonviolence may be seen more as a tactic than a personal conviction.^[14] Thus, Biko's BCM had much in common with other left-wing African nationalist movements of the time, such as Amilcar Cabral's PAIGC and Huey Newton's Black Panther Party.

Biko's relevance in the present

In the present post-Apartheid South Africa, Biko is now revered across the political spectrum despite their obvious ideological differences. Many of these people see Biko's philosophy as no longer relevant after 1994.

However, many present-day social movements, activists, and academics continue to stress the relevance of Biko's black consciousness. This includes a strong critique of voting by academic Andile Mngxitama who has said that if Biko were alive today, he would not be supporting any political party, would not even vote, but would be marching with the social movements against government.^{[15] [16] [17]}

Tributes

Biko's name has been honoured at several universities. Locally, the main Student Union buildings of the University of Cape Town are named in his honour and each year a commemorative Steve Biko lecture, open to all students, is delivered on the anniversary of his death. Internationally, the Oxford Road campus of the University of Manchester is named in his honour. Ruskin College, Oxford has a Biko House student accommodation. The bar at the University of Bradford was named after Biko until its closure in 2005. Numerous other venues in Students Unions around the United Kingdom also bear his name. The Santa Barbara Student Housing Cooperative has a house named after Steve Biko, themed to provide a safe, respectful space for people of color. A street in Hounslow, West London, is named "Steve Biko Way". At the University of California, Santa Cruz, there is a section of dormitories named "Biko House" located in the Oakes College Multicultural Theme Housing. The Pretoria Academic Hospital was renamed the Steve Biko Academic Hospital ^[18] in 2008. Durban University of Technology has acknowledged Steve Biko’s contribution to South African Society by naming its largest campus after him. A bronze bust of Steve Biko was unveiled in Freedom Square on this campus as a tribute to him.

References in the arts

Literature

• Benjamin Zephaniah wrote a poem entitled, "Biko The Greatness", included in Zephaniah's 2001 collection, Too Black, Too Strong.
• "The Compound Arcane" is a poem written in 1975 by Jack Hirschman, subtitled Hommage to Steve Biko, which is published in The Arcanes. This poem is notable by the fact that it was composed prior to Biko's death, yet already the poet was inspired enough by Biko's life to recognize him as a martyr.

Theatre, film and television

• In 1978, Malcolm Clarke^[19] recounted Biko's story in a documentary called, The Life and Death of Steve Biko.
• 1979 play entitled The Biko Inquest, written by Norman Fenton and Jon Blair. In 1985, a television adaptation of the original stage play was created, directed by Albert Finney and originally aired in the US through HBO in 1985.^[20]
• In 1987, Richard Attenborough directed the movie Cry Freedom, a biographical drama about Biko starring Denzel Washington and Kevin Kline.
• In the Disney channel movie The Color of Friendship, Biko's death is used as a plot turner in breaking the two teens apart.
• In Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights, while Brian Potter is on Crimetime and is grabbed by a following interviewee he makes a reference to Biko.
• Within the Star Trek canon, the USS Biko is named in his honour.
• In the manga and anime Planetes, a presumably co-lateral descendant, James Biko, is the navigator of the Werner von Braun Jupiter Explorer.

Music

Biko has been the subject of many tributes in many different genres of music, including rap, hip hop, jazz, reggae and rock

• In 1978, Peter Hammill on his album: The future Now in the song : A motor bike in Afrika was the first to mention Biko (after his death) in England.
• South African improviser, composer, and bandleader Johnny Dyani (Johnny Mbizo Dyani) recorded an album entitled Song for Biko, featuring a composition (written by Dyani) of the same name.
• Tom Paxton released the song, "The Death of Stephen Biko", on his 1978 album, Heroes.
• Christy Moore sang a song about Biko called, "Biko Drum", which makes several reverences to the South African hero. The song was written by Wally Page.
• The A Tribe Called Quest 1993 album, Midnight Marauders, includes the song, "Steve Biko (Stir It Up)." In which Biko is only mentioned in the 20 second chorus.
• Biko is referenced in the Public Enemy song "Show 'Em Whatcha Got" on the album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.
• Steel Pulse released the song, "Biko's Kindred Lament", on their 1979 album, Tribute to the Martyrs.
• Beenie Man's 1997 album, Many Moods of Moses, contains a track entitled "Steve Biko."
• German singer Patrice sings about Biko in the song "Jah Jah Deh Deh" off his album How Do You Call It?.
• Dead Prez's album Let's Get Free references Steve Biko in the track "I'm a African"
• Tapper Zukie released the song "Tribute To Steve Biko" on his 1978 album "Peace In The Ghetto", on the Frontline Records label.^[21]
• Peter Gabriel tells the tale of Biko in Biko, on his 1980 album Peter Gabriel (alternatively known as Melt, for the cover art), released in 1980. Gabriel sings: "You can blow out a candle / But you can't blow out a fire / Once the flames begin to catch / The wind will blow it higher". During the reign of South Africa's apartheid government, Gabriel often closed his concerts with the song, encouraging the audience to sing with him. Even in his Latin America Tour in 2009, Gabriel closed his concerts with the song. The song was performed at Woodstock 1994 and appears on the concert album of the same name. The song has been covered by many artists, including The Flirtations, Joan Baez, Robert Wyatt, Simple Minds, Manu Dibango, Black 47 and Ray Wilson
• Dave Matthews wrote the song "Cry Freedom" in honour of Biko.
• Dirty district have a song based on the murder of Steve Biko, titled "Steve Biko", on their debut album, Pousse Au Crime et Longueurs de Temps .
• Randy Stonehill sings about Biko in the song "Stand Like Steel" on his 1989 album Return to Paradise (produced by Mark Heard)^[22][23].
• Sweet Honey in the Rock's 1981 album, Good News, contains tracks entitled "Biko" and "Chile Your Waters Run Red Through Soweto", which compares Biko's death to that of Chilean musician Victor Jara and was covered by Billy Bragg in 1992.
• System Of A Down recorded a song entitled "Biko" onto one of their early demo tapes.
• Simphiwe Dana's second album is called 'the one love movement on bantu biko street'
• Stevie Wonder mentions the struggle in South Africa and Steven Biko in a tribute concert to Bob Dylan in his song "Blowing in the Wind"
• Willy Porter mentions Biko in his song entitled "The Trees Have Soul". "Even Stephen Biko knows, the trees have soul".
• Johnny Clegg mentions Steve Biko, also Victoria Mxenge and Neil Aggett in his song, Asimbonanga, about the Apartheid and Nelson Mandela.
• Wyclef Jean compares Biko's horrific events to the ones of Amadou Diallo in his tribute song name "Diallo" in the album "The Ecleftic: Two Sides of a Book".
• Banda Bassotti Figli Della Stessa Rabbia
• Lowkey's 2009 album Dear Listener references Steve Biko in the track "I Believe"
• Singer - songwriter Kris Kristofferson mentions him on the song called Mal Sacate. Kristofferson sings: They killed so many heroes / Like Zapata (presente!) and Fonseca (presente!)/and Sandino (presente!) and Guevarra (presente!)/ and Steve Biko (presente!)/ but they can never kill the human spirit in Nicaragua.
• Senegal's Youssou N'Dour mentions Steve Biko in his song New Africa
• The Scottish rock band Simple Minds's song "Biko" is about Steve Biko

Paintings

Numerous works have paid homage to Steve Biko, and keep awareness of him alive. These include:

Homage to Steve Biko—Bester, Willie. [1]

Who killed Steve Biko? -- Ashton, Tony. [2]

See also

• Civil disobedience
• Nonviolence
• Nonviolent resistance
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Steve Biko building at the University of Manchester

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Stephen Bantu Biko". South African history online. September 2007. http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/bios/biko-s.htm. Retrieved 2007-11-20. 
2. ^ "Background: Steve Biko: martyr of the anti-apartheid movement". BBC News. 1997-12-08. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/37448.stm. Retrieved 2007-04-16. 
3. ^ Biko, Steve (1986). I Write What I Like. Harper & Row. pp. 103–104. 
4. ^ See, for instance, Rian Malan's book My Traitor's Heart
5. ^ "King William's Town's hero: Steve Biko 1946 - 1977". Buffalo City government. http://www.buffalocity.gov.za/visitors/biko.stm. Retrieved 2007-09-02. 
6. ^ Pillay, Verashni (2007-09-12). "Keeping Steve Biko alive". News24. http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2181296,00.html. Retrieved 2007-09-19. 
7. ^ "Mrs Helen ZILLE". Who's who. 24.com. http://www.whoswhosa.co.za/Pages/profilefull.aspx?IndID=3528. Retrieved 2007-12-12. 
8. ^ SA editor's escape from apartheid, 30 years on M & G
9. ^ Account of homicide accusations against the police in The Independent (of London)
10. ^ Template:Cite book.
11. ^ Kee, Alistair (2006). The rise and demise of black theology. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. 
12. ^ Heinrichs, Ann (2001). Mahatma Gandhi. Gareth Stevens. p. 12. 
13. ^ Lens, Sidney (1963). Africa — awakening giant. Putnam. pp. 180. 
14. ^ Wiredu, Kwasi; William E. Abraham, Abiola Irele, Ifeanyi A. Menkiti (2003). Companion to African philosophy. Blackwell Publishing. 
15. ^ "Why Steve Biko wouldn't vote". Andile Mngxitama. Pambazuka News. http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55639. 
16. ^ Mngxitama, Andile; Andile Mngxitama, Amanda Alexander, and Nigel C. Gibson (2008). BIKO LIVES! Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko. Palgrave Macmillan. 
17. ^ "A homemade politics’ Rights, democracy and social movements in South Africa". Matt Birkinshaw. Abahlali baseMjondolo. http://www.abahlali.org/node/5137. 
18. ^ http://www.pah.org.za/
19. ^ http://www.ridm.qc.ca/even.e/lundis-20050207.html
20. ^ "The Biko Inquest". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086966/. 
21. ^ Tapper Zukie - Peace In The Ghetto
22. ^ http://www.nifty-music.com/Stonehill/
23. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Stonehill

Further reading

• 1972 Interview with Steve Biko
• I Write What I Like, by Steve Biko, Harper & Row, 1986, San Francisco.
• Steve Biko: Black Consciousness in South Africa; ed. Millard Arnold; Random House, New York. 1978.
• Biko, by Donald Woods; originally published by Paddington Press, London and New York, 1978; later edition published by Henry Holt, New York, 1987.
• New Introduction to I Write What I Like by Lewis Gordon
• Biko Lives: Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko edited by Andile Mngxitama, Amanda Alexander, and Nigel Gibson, Palgrave, 2008.
• Black Consciousness: The dialectics of liberation in South Africa by Nigel Gibson
• Goodwin, June; Schiff, Ben (November 13, 1995), "Who Killed Steve Biko?: Exhuming Truth in South Africa", The Nation (New York: The Nation Company) 261 (16): 565–568, ISSN 0027-8378 
• No. 46: Steve Biko by Hilda Bernstein (Victor Kamkin, 1978, ISBN 0-317-36653-X)
• Mngxitama, Andile; Andile Mngxitama, Amanda Alexander, and Nigel C. Gibson (2008). BIKO LIVES! Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko. Palgrave Macmillan.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Steve Biko

• Address by Nelson Mandela on the 20th anniversary of Biko's death
• Young Black Leader Dies in Detention in South Africa, Raising Fears of New Unrest By John F. Burns, special to the New York Times
• Testimony describes fatal beating of anti-apartheid activist, CNN

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