South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko dies in police custody 40 years ago #OnThisDay #OTD (Sep 12 1977)


Video: 'The Life and Death of Steve Biko'

(Monday, September 12, 1977)Steve Biko, a South African anti-apartheid activist at the forefront of a grassroots campaign known as the Black Consciousness Movement, died today alone in a cell while in police detention in Pretoria, South Africa, triggering an international outcry.

Biko, who was 30, was the twenty-first person to die in a South African prison in twelve months and the forty-sixth political detainee to die during interrogation since the government introduced laws permitting imprisonment without trial in 1963.


Video: 'A look at Steve Biko - 36 years after his death'