Steve Biko: father of black consciousness in SA

Abstract

Stephen (Steve) Bantu Biko was a freedom fighter who dedicated his short life to conscientising and liberating young black people from oppressive white authority. He was born on 18 December 19461 in Tarkastad, a small semi-urban town in what is now the Eastern Cape province. He was the third child of Mzingaye Mathew Biko and Nokuzola 'Mamcethe' Duna. In 1948, his family relocated to Ginsberg township, King William's Town, also in the Eastern Cape. Biko was raised in an underprivileged family, with his mother earning an inadequate income as a domestic worker and his father working as a policeman and later as a clerk. Biko was only four years of age in 1950 when his father died, leaving Nokuzola a single mother with five children to raise. In 1952, when Biko was a Standard 3 (now Grade 5) learner at Charles Morgan Higher Primary School, his school friends described him as a rather playful character. His Standard 3 teacher, who characterised him as a bright, naughty child that always walked on bare feet, promoted him to Standard 5 (Grade 7) although his friends never saw him study.