Bram Fischer
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Bram Fischer
Abraham Louis Fischer (23 April 1908 – 8 May 1975) was a South African Communist lawyer of Afrikaner descent, notable for anti-apartheid activism and for the legal defence of anti-apartheid figures, including Nelson Mandela, at the Rivonia Trial. Following the trial he was himself put on trial accused of furthering communism. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, and diagnosed with cancer while in prison. The South African Prisons Act was extended to include his brother's house in Bloemfontein where he died two months later. Family and education Fischer came from a prominent Afrikaner family; his father was Percy Fischer (1876-1957), a judge president of the Orange Free State, and his grandfather was Abraham Fischer (1850–1913), a prime minister of the Orange River Colony and later a member of the cabinet of the unified South Africa. Prior to studying at University of Oxford ( New College) as a Rhodes scholar during the 1930s, he was schooled at Grey College and Gre ...
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Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein, ( ; , "fountain of flowers") also known as Bloem, is one of South Africa's three capital cities and the capital of the Free State (province), Free State province. It serves as the country's judicial capital, along with legislative capital Cape Town and Administration (government), administrative capital Pretoria. Bloemfontein is the seventh-largest city in South Africa. Situated at an elevation of above sea level, the city is home to approximately 520,000 residents and forms part of the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality which has a population of 747,431. It was one of the host cities for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The city of Bloemfontein hosts the Supreme Court of Appeal (South Africa), Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa, the Franklin Game Reserve, :af:Naval Hill, Naval Hill, the Maselspoort, Maselspoort Resort and the :af:Sand du Plessis-teaterkompleks, Sand du Plessis Theatre. The city hosts numerous museums, including the National Women's Monument, th ...
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Grey College, Bloemfontein
Grey College (Afrikaans: ''Grey Kollege'') is a semi-private English & Afrikaans medium school for boys situated in the suburb of Universitas in Bloemfontein in the Free State province of South Africa, it is one of the 23 Milner Schools. The sister school is Eunice High School (Bloemfontein). Grey College was ranked 1st among high schools in Africa by Africa Almanac in 2003 and 2013, based upon quality of education, student engagement, strength and activities of alumni, school profile, internet and news visibility. History The school was officially opened on 13 October 1855 and the first headmaster was the Reverend Andrew Murray. It is the third-oldest school in South Africa and the oldest north of the Orange River. During his presidential inauguration speech in 1896, while addressing learners from Grey College, Marthinus Theunis Steyn mentioned that he envisioned a university for Bloemfontein where youth from all over the country could come and study. He supported th ...
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Percy Yutar
Percy Yutar (29 July 1911 – 13 July 2002) was a lawyer who became South Africa's first Jewish attorney-general. He is most noted as the state prosecutor in the Rivonia trial in which anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela and seven others were convicted of sabotage and sentenced to life imprisonment. Early life Percy Yutar was born in the Cape Town suburb of Woodstock to parents who had emigrated to South Africa from the ghettos of Lithuania, like the majority of the country's once-large Jewish community. His father's original surname was "Yuter". As a young man, he worked in his father's butcher's shop. Yutar attended the University of Cape Town on a scholarship, and in 1937 received his doctorate in law. Despite his education, given the prevalence of antisemitism in South Africa at the time, he had to work, for five years, in a lowly legal position at the post office. In 1940, he was appointed a junior state prosecutor and eventually become Deputy Attorney General, first in ...
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Liliesleaf Farm
Liliesleaf Farm is a location in northern Johannesburg, South Africa, which is most noted for its use as a safe house for African National Congress activists in the 1960s. In 1963, the South African police raided the farm, arresting more than a dozen ANC leaders and activists, who were then tried and prosecuted during the Rivonia Trial. Since the end of apartheid, the area has been turned into a museum and heritage site. History The farmhouse is located in Rivonia, a suburb outside Johannesburg. In 1961, the property was purchased by Arthur Goldreich and Harold Wolpe to use as the headquarters for the underground South African Communist Party and a safe house for political fugitives. African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela needed a safe place from which to operate, and lived there under the assumed name of David Motsamayi, a farmer hired to work on the farm. On 11 July 1963, security police raid A police raid is an unexpected visit by police or other law-enforcemen ...
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Long Walk To Freedom
''Long Walk to Freedom'' is an autobiography credited to South African President Nelson Mandela. It was ghostwritten by Richard Stengel and first published in 1994 by Little Brown & Co. The book profiles his early life, coming of age, education and 27 years spent in prison. Under the apartheid government, Mandela was regarded as a terrorist and jailed on the infamous Robben Island for his role as a leader of the then-outlawed African National Congress (ANC) and its armed wing the Umkhonto We Sizwe. He later achieved international recognition for his leadership as president in rebuilding the country's once segregationist society. The last chapters of the book describe his political ascension and his belief that the struggle still continued against apartheid in South Africa. Mandela dedicated his book to "''my six children, Madiba and Makaziwe (my first daughter) who are now deceased, and to Makgatho, Makaziwe, Zenani and Zindzi, whose support and love I treasure; to my twen ...
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Treason Trial
The Treason Trial was a trial in Johannesburg in which 156 people, including Nelson Mandela, were arrested in a raid and accused of treason in South Africa in 1956. The main trial lasted until 1961, when all of the defendants were found not guilty. During the trials, Oliver Tambo left the country and was exiled. Whilst in other European and African countries, he started an organisation which helped bring publicity to the African National Congress's cause in South Africa. Some of the defendants were later convicted in the Rivonia Trial in 1964. Chief Luthuli has said of the Treason Trial:The treason trial must occupy a special place in South African history. That grim pre-dawn raid, deliberately calculated to strike terror into hesitant minds and impress upon the entire nation the determination of the governing clique to stifle all opposition, made one hundred and fifty-six of us, belonging to all the races of our land, into a group of accused facing one of the most serious cha ...
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Israel Maisels
Israel Aaron (“Isie”) Maisels (19 November 1905 – 8 December 1994) was a judge of the High Court of Rhodesia and the Judge President of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland. He practised law in South Africa from 1928 until his retirement in 1992 and was widely regarded as “pre-eminent among his generation of advocates” and “one of the country’s most formidable legal minds.” In addition to a legal practice, he is best known for his defence of those prosecuted for their political beliefs and “as a man whose life and interests reflected a deep concern for human rights and civil liberty.” He was the leader of the defence team in the famous South African Treason Trial of 1956 to 1961 in which the accused, including Nelson Mandela, were all acquitted as well as numerous other cases in which he represented individuals adversely affected by the apartheid government's oppressive legislation. He served on the bench of the High Court of Southern Rhodesia from May 1961 to June ...
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African Mine Workers' Strike
The African Mine Workers' Strike was a labour dispute involving mine workers of Witwatersrand in South Africa. It started on 12 August, 1946 and lasted approximately a week. The strike was attacked by police and over the week, at least 1,248 workers were wounded and at least 9 killed. African Mine Workers' Union In 1941 a miners' conference was called by the Transvaal Provincial Committee of the African National Congress. The conference was supported by Paramount Chief of Zululand and trade unions. It was here that the African Mine Workers' Union came into being and elected a committee under the presidency of J. B. Marks, who also became President of the Transvaal African National Congress. At first the union was not recognised by the Chamber of Mines, but after sustained pressure for better wages and conditions, the prime minister, Field Marshal Jan Smuts, announced some piecemeal increases improvements in conditions while at the same time issuing War Measure No. 1425—banning ...
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African National Congress
The African National Congress (ANC) is a Social democracy, social-democratic political party in Republic of South Africa, South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, first post-apartheid election installed Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa. Cyril Ramaphosa, the incumbent national President, has served as President of the ANC since 18 December 2017. Founded on 8 January 1912 in Bloemfontein as the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), the organisation was formed to agitate, by moderate methods, for the rights of black South Africans. When the National Party (South Africa), National Party government came to power 1948 South African general election, in 1948, the ANC's central purpose became to oppose the new government's policy of institutionalised apartheid. To this end, its methods and means of organisation shifted; its adoption of the techn ...
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Sharpeville Massacre
The Sharpeville massacre occurred on 21 March 1960 at the police station in the township of Sharpeville in the then Transvaal Province of the then Union of South Africa (today part of Gauteng). After demonstrating against pass laws, a crowd of about 7,000 protesters went to the police station. Sources disagree as to the behaviour of the crowd: some state that the crowd was peaceful, while others state that the crowd had been hurling stones at the police and that the mood had turned "ugly". The South African Police (SAP) opened fire on the crowd when the crowd started advancing toward the fence around the police station; tear-gas had proved ineffectual. There were 249 victims in total, including 29 children, with 69 people killed and 180 injured. Some were shot in the back as they fled. The massacre was photographed by photographer Ian Berry, who initially thought the police were firing blanks. In present-day South Africa, 21 March is celebrated as a public holiday in honour of ...
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Jan Smuts
Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts, (24 May 1870 11 September 1950) was a South African statesman, military leader and philosopher. In addition to holding various military and cabinet posts, he served as prime minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 to 1924 and 1939 to 1948. Smuts was born to Afrikaner parents in the British Cape Colony. He was educated at Victoria College, Stellenbosch before reading law at Christ's College, Cambridge on a scholarship. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1894 but returned home the following year. In the leadup to the Second Boer War, Smuts practised law in Pretoria, the capital of the South African Republic. He led the republic's delegation to the Bloemfontein Conference and served as an officer in a commando unit following the outbreak of war in 1899. In 1902, he played a key role in negotiating the Treaty of Vereeniging, which ended the war and resulted in the annexation of the South African Republic and Orange Free St ...
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Molly Krige
Molly, Mollie or mollies may refer to: Animals * ''Poecilia'', a genus of fishes ** ''Poecilia sphenops'', a fish species * A female mule (horse–donkey hybrid) People * Molly (name) or Mollie, a female given name, including a list of persons and characters with the name * Molly Pitcher, one of several American women believed to have helped fight against British forces during the American Revolution * Molly Malone, a mythical 19th-century Irish fishmonger and associated folk song and statue * Molly Mormon, a stereotype of a Latter-day Saints woman Dance and theatre * ''Molly'' (musical), a 1973 Broadway musical * Molly dance, a form of English Morris dance Film and television * ''Molly'' (1983 film), an Australian film by Ned Lander * ''Molly'' (1999 film), an American film starring Elisabeth Shue * '' Molly: An American Girl on the Home Front'', a 2006 made-for-television film * ''The Roads Not Taken'' (working title ''Molly''), a 2020 American drama film by Sally Potter * ...
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