Over the course of two days, the University of Limpopo will be commemorating its 65th anniversary by holding a number of events in honour of Black Consciousness (BC) martyrs Steve Biko and Onkgopotse Tiro.
On September 12, the Turfloop campus in Mankweng township, east of Polokwane, will host a discourse on BC featuring legal eagle Mojanku Gumbi as the keynote speaker.
This day is known as Steve Biko Day.
Biko was only 31 years old on September 12, 1977, when the apartheid government killed him.
A prominent figure in the BC movement, Biko assisted in the founding of the South African Students Organisation (Saso) in 1968 as a split from the National Union of South African Students, which was led by white people and included a diverse range of racial backgrounds.
Following Gumbi’s speech on the illustrious journey of Biko, influential academics and politicians who support BC’s ideals will participate in panel discussions.
The university said that it hosts these events every year as a way to honour the campus that housed the Saso’s pioneers and served as a BC stronghold for a considerable amount of time.
Victor Kgomoeswana, the spokesperson for the university, said they are honoured to host these events on their campus, welcoming former students and members of the public.
Greatest luminaries
“We are proud to have been given this responsibility to honour these icons who taught us to love ourselves as black people,” said Kgomoeswana.
“We are reminding the public that when our traditional leaders met in 1959 and requested the then government for a university, that dream was realised that this institution continues to preserve its legacy.
“Over the years, this institution has produced some of the greatest luminaries in various spheres.”
Former president of the Azanian People’s Organisation, Mosibudi Mangena, has suggested that the R71 Road between Polokwane and Mankweng be renamed Onkgopotse Tiro Road.
There is already the Tiro Hall and a road within the campus named after him. Professor Barney Pityana will deliver the Onkgopotse Tiro Memorial Lecture on September 13.
Tiro was a student leader at the then University of the North before it was renamed University of Limpopo in the early 1970s.
Before fleeing to exile in Botswana and dying there in 1974 from a parcel bomb, he was one of the early proponents of the revolutionary BC.
It has always been believed that the apartheid security forces sent the parcel bomb.
Assassinated in exile
While the apartheid government initially saw SASO and the BC movement as preaching a racial separatism not inimical to their own, it soon realised the radical movement was a threat to racial hierarchy in the country.
The government clamped down as black workers went on a string of nationwide strikes in the mid-1970s, which culminated in the Soweto uprising of 1976.
Three years after the assassination of Saso and BC activist Tiro, Biko passed away while in police custody.
However, Biko’s murder elevated him to the top of South Africa’s pantheon of great anti-apartheid leaders rather than stifling his influence.
Today, many invoke his name to critique the post-apartheid order, which remains brutally unequal.
