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Donald Woods was a South African journalist and anti-apartheid activist. He was born on December 15, 1933 and his coverage of Steve Biko’s death in custody led to his exile from South Africa. He was born in Hobeni, Transkei, South Africa and was a descendant from five generations of white settlers. He became an active member in the anti-apartheid Federal Party while he studied law at the University of Cape Town. He started working for newspapers in the United Kingdom before returning to South Africa to become a reporter for the Daily Dispatch and became their editor-in-chief in 1965 for the paper that had an anti-apartheid editorial stance and a racially combined editorial staff. Donald was at the forefront in September 1977 to find the truth, when the South African Black conciousness leader, Steve Biko died while in the custody of law enforcers.
The police at first, claimed Steve Biko died as a result of hunger strike but more results proved that he had died of brain injuries while in custody and that they kept him naked while in chains for a long of time before his death. The police then claimed Steve had gotten the injuries as a result of scuffling with the police in Port Elizabeth. Woods used his position at the Daily Dispatch newspaper to attack the Nationalists government over Biko’s death and this made him a target of the police who hounded and then banned him not to leave his home in East London or continue to work. After a child who had a shirt with a picture of Steve Biko was found dead injected with acid, Donald Woods began to fear for his life and family.
He disguised himself and escaped through his back fence to Lesotho. He trekked for about three hundred miles and swarm across the flooded Tele River to get there and his family joined him later after which, they escaped to Britain, where they were granted political asylum. He wrote many books while in exile and the movie “Cry Freedom” was based on his book “Biko”. He visited to South Africa in 1990, after thirteen years in exile but died in a hospital near London on August 19, 2001 of cancer.
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