Stephen Bantu Biko :: essays research papers

Stephen Bantu Biko     Stephen Biko is known internation on the wholey as the founder of the to the southAfrican Students Organization (SASO), and a leading force in the siemens Africa swarthy instinct movement. He fought against the separation between blacknessand whites, called apartheid (the Afrikaner term for separateness). Hischildhood experiences and character, lead him to became a powerful leader.Steve Biko was born on December 18, 1946, in King Williams Town, southwesterlyAfrica. He father was a clerk and his mother was a housemaid. Following theSharpeville massacre in 1960, Biko was dear 17 years old when he became a policy-making activist. He started to become active when he got expelled fromLovedale High School and his brother was arrested in a nationwide policecrackdown on political activists. He terminate up graduating in 1966 at a boardingschool in Natal named St. Francis College.     By then, his mind and character were those of a leader. He had a quickbrain with huge mental force and ideas. He had the place to cut through to thecore of a problem and find the opera hat solution. "His mind was a tool to chiselout sense and trueness and order" (Woods 78). Biko was thoughtful, sensitive andhad a good sense of humor. He was motivate by the search for good and truth.At the University of Natal Medicine in 1968, he became involved in themultiracial National Union of South African Students. He was known by peers andadults as a scholarly person leader This organization fought for black rights, except heclaimed that, "the white were doing all the talking and the blacks listening"(Biko 210). Biko wanted the blacks to have as much judge and participation as thewhites, so in 1968 he became the co-founder and first electric chair of he SouthAfrican Students Organization (SASO). This was an all-black organization,which aim was to raise self respect and reliance to all blacks. He said, "B lackliberation starts with mental self reliance. This can only be initiatedin isolation from ally whose good intentions are an obstacle to such self-realization" (Woods 63). This organization helped the pedestal of anothermovement and convention, known as the South African Students Movement, and theBlack Peoples Convention (BPC). This movement also became known as the BlackConsciousness Movement. The movements he founded were headed towards students,because they were the ones that might change their minds, unlike the olderpeople, who have already made up their minds. He published Black Review, whichwas a political journal for the black community. These movements andpublications raised so much controversy that the black man is as worthy as any