Donald Woods - Relationship With Steve Biko

Relationship With Steve Biko

Under Woods, the Daily Dispatch was very critical of the South African government, but was also initially critical of the emerging Black Consciousness Movement under the leadership of Steve Biko. A young black woman, Dr Mamphela Ramphele, berated Woods for writing misleading stories about the movement, challenging him to meet with Biko.

The two men became friends, leading the Security Police to monitor Woods's movements. Nevertheless, Woods continued to provide political support to Biko, both through writing editorials in his newspaper and controversially hiring black journalists to the Daily Dispatch.

On 16 June 1976, an uprising broke out in Soweto, in which predominantly 13-16 year-old students from Soweto participated in a march to protest against being taught in Afrikaans and against the Bantu education system in general. They marched from the Morris Isaacson School intending to hold a rally outside the Education buildings in Johannesburg. The schoolchildren were met by the police and ordered to disperse. The children refused and the police opened fire, killing at least 618 of them. In the violence, two white people were also killed, including Dr Melville Edelstein, a sociologist who had done a lot of work with the black youth. He was stoned to death and left with a sign around his neck saying "Beware Afrikaaners". As the children pelted the police with stones, South Africa went up in flames. The government responded by banning the entire Black Consciousness Movement along with many other political organisations, as well as issuing banning orders against various persons. Donald Woods was one of the banned persons and was effectively placed under house arrest.

Steve Biko had been involved in clandestine contacts with two outlawed liberation movements, the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). Returning to his home one evening from a trip to Cape Town, Biko was arrested, imprisoned and mortally beaten. He was transported naked and manacled for 740 miles (1200 km) in the back of a police van to Pretoria, and died shortly after arriving at the police hospital there. Jimmy Kruger, the Minister of Justice, claimed that Biko died on a hunger strike. Speaking in Afrikaans, he said of Biko's death, "Dit laat my koud" ("It leaves me cold").

Woods went to the morgue with Biko's wife Ntsiki and photographed Biko's battered body. The photographs were later published in Woods's book, exposing the South African government's cover-up of the cause of Biko's death.