The mid-seventies were a period of youth awakening and rebellion in South Africa. In the absence of lawful political activity as a result of the banning of the two principal liberation movements, the ANC and the PAC, the Black Consciousness Movement grew rapidly to fill that void. We all felt the tensions accelerating, particularly among those of us who had been on Robben Island. Yes, we were not as active in politics as we had been in the 1960s; however, it was impossible to live in a place like Mabopane, Ga-Rankuwa, or anywhere in the country if you were black, and not feel deprived. Correspondingly, the authorities were becoming nervous and more vicious by the day.

By sheer good fortune, I was to meet the man, Steven Bantu Biko, who had become a political thorn in the flesh of the apartheid regime. Since 1969, while I was in exile in Pietersburg, I’d heard about the eloquent, intelligent and humble man from people like Bobo Kgware, an extremely active, anti-order, anti-establishment, rebel himself.

I was introduced to Steve Biko by Reverend Maurice Ngakane, a Pastor of one of the churches in Mabopane. Maurice had warned me two days before that Steve Biko would be visiting and invited me to lunch with them.

Steve was a big man with an imposing presence. We spent the afternoon together and I told him that I was going to America and he congratulated me on that achievement.

Two years later, to my horror, I learned that Steve Biko had been brutally murdered by the dreaded Security Branch. We held a memorial service for him, in New York, which was attended by many South Africans living in exile, including Steve's old friend, Donald Wood, who had travelled from London, for the occasion.

On the 16th of June 1976, what began as a mass protest march by students in Soweto against the use of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction exploded from the accumulated outrage into burning of government buildings and trains in Soweto.

The police response was reminiscent of that of 1960, in Sharpeville. They fired teargas at the protestors who responded by stoning back. The police then opened with live ammunition that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of school children.