African hero. He died due to brain lesion caused by the “application of force to the head”. Leader of a BCM, South Africa. He became a martyr of the Freedom Struggle. He questioned the apartheid system and the conditions that his people were forced to endure. Involved in the daily struggle that faced Blacks, he decided to quit medical school. Biko’s political activities caused him banned by government in 1973. The banning restricted Biko from talking to more than one person a timebut it did not stop his commitment to activism. For the next four years, he continued to spread his message at gatherings and with his underground publication called “Frank Talk”. During this period Biko was often harassed, arrested, and detained by the South African Police. On August 18, 1977, Biko was seized by the police and detained under section 6 of the Terrorism Act. Biko was held in prison for twenty-four days were he was interrogated, starved, and brutally beaten. It wasn’t until Biko was laying unconscious, that the doctors suggested that he would be transported to Pretoria for medical treatment, 740 miles away.
(1946 – 1977)
– Steve (Bantu) Biko Quotes –
Merely by describing yourself as black you have started on a road towards emancipation, you have committed yourself to fight against all forces that seek to use your blackness as a stamp that marks you out as a subservient being.
~ Steve Biko
You are either alive and proud or you are dead, and when you are dead, you can’t care anyway.
~ Steve Biko
The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
~ Steve Biko
Even today, we are still accused of racism. This is a mistake. We know that all interracial groups in South Africa are relationships in which whites are superior, blacks inferior. So as a prelude whites must be made to realize that they are only human, not superior.
~ Steve Biko
You and I are now in confrontation, but I see no Violence.
~ Steve Biko
It becomes more necessary to see the truth as it is if you realise that the only vehicle for change are these people who have lost their personality. The first step therefore is to make the black man come to himself; to pump back life into his empty shell; to infuse him with pride and dignity, to remind him of his complicity in the crime of allowing himself to be misused and therefore letting evil reign supreme in the country of his birth.
~ Steve Biko
Apartheid – both petty and grand – is obviously evil. Nothing can justify the arrogant assumption that a clique of foreigners has the right to decide on the lives of a majority.
~ Steve Biko
The logic behind white domination is to prepare the black man for the subservient role in this country. Not so long ago this used to be freely said in parliament, even about the educational system of the black people. It is still said even today, although in a much more sophisticated language.
~ Steve Biko
It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die.
~ Steve Biko
Tradition has it that whenever a group of people has tasted the lovely fruits of wealth, security and prestige it begins to find it more comfortable to believe in the obvious lie and accept that it alone is entitled to privilege.
~ Steve Biko
Being black is not a matter of pigmentation – being black is a reflection of a mental attitude.
~ Steve Biko
The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity.
~ Steve Biko
Black Consciousness is an attitude of the mind and a way of life, the most positive call to emanate from the black world for a long time. Its essence is the realisation by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression – the blackness of their skin – and to operate as a group to rid themselves of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude.
~ Steve Biko
To a large extent the evil-doers have succeeded in producing at the output end of their machine a kind of black man who is man only in form. This is the extent to which the process of dehumanization has advanced.
~ Steve Biko
Black man, you are on your own.
~ Steve Biko
There’s no transformation process that could bear the desired outcomes without women throwing their weight behind that change initiative, and the same holds for the nation-building process.
~ Steve Biko
It (his death) is something that cannot be celebrated, because he departs with the truth about many
~ Steve Biko
We do not want to be reminded that it is we, the indigenous people, who are poor and exploited in the land of our birth. These are concepts which the Black Consciousness approach wishes to eradicate from the black man’s mind before our society is driven to chaos by irresponsible people from Coca-cola and hamburger cultural backgrounds.
~ Steve Biko
The blacks are tired of standing at the touchlines to witness a game that they should be playing. They want to do things for themselves and all by themselves.
~ Steve Biko
Same with blacks. They must be made to realize that they are also human, not inferior.
~ Steve Biko
There is nothing much really to say about the man’s death,
~ Steve Biko
The system concedes nothing without demand, for it formulates its very method of operation on the basis that the ignorant will learn to know, the child will grow into an adult and therefore demands will begin to be made. It gears itself to resist demands in whatever way it sees fit.
~ Steve Biko
Women must be at the forefront of nation-building to bring the South African citizenry together and, therefore, develop a whole new ethos of human co-existence.
~ Steve Biko
In time, we shall be in a position to bestow on South Africa the greatest possible gift – a more human face.
~ Steve Biko
