Democracy in South Africa has been in effect for 22 years and there are many people who contributed and still contribute to its growing success. Dubbed the rainbow nation, there are icons from all walks of life.
As South Africans celebrate Mandela Day we are reminded of those past and present who helped South Africa get to where it is today.
- Nelson Mandela (18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) Born in the rural area of Mvezo in Umtata, Mandela went on to become one of the world’s greatest icons after serving 27 years as a prisoner on Robben Island for terrorism and treason. Mandela became the first black president of South Africa after its first democratically held elections.
- Winnie Madikizela-Mandela is the former wife of Nelson Mandela and was an activist and politician who has held several government positions and headed the African National Congress Women’s League.
- Graça Machel is a Mozambican politician and humanitarian. She is the widow of Nelson Mandela and of former Mozambican president, Samora Machel.
- George Bizos arrived in South Africa as a World War II refugee with his father. He is best known for defending the Rivonia trialists and was a personal friend of Nelson Mandela.
- Ahmed Kathrada was involved in the anti-apartheid activities of the African National Congress (ANC) which led him to his imprisonment on Robben Island.
- Andrew Mlangeni was arrested in 1963 Mlangeni and was found guilty of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island. He was released in the early ’90s.
- Mittah Seperepere (28 December 1929 – 30 October 2010) had to flee the country after being arrested by police but returned to South Africa after its emancipation. Seperepere was elected secretary of the ANC Women’s League. By the time of her death, she was provincial secretary of the ANC Veteran’s League.
- Gauta Mokgoro was arrested and charged with treason against the state and was sentenced to seven years on Robben Island, he was later banished to Kuruman. Mokgoro became the first black deputy speaker for the Northern Cape Legislature.
- Hugh Masekela was deeply affected by his life experiences and so he made music that reflected his experiences in the harsh political climate of South Africa during the ’50s and ’60s.
- Yvonne Chaka Chaka is an internationally recognised and highly respected South African singer, songwriter, entrepreneur, humanitarian and teacher.
- Johnny Clegg is a dancer, anthropologist, singer, songwriter, academic, activist and French knight. He campaigned against the injustice of apartheid in South Africa and was instrumental in putting the new South Africa on the map as a cultural ambassador.
- James Phillips (22 January 1959 – 31 July 1995) was raised in the East Rand of Joburg. He wrote music for a young white following that despised the apartheid state and the Calvinist morality that guided it. He is described as a supreme musical talent who worked hard at songwriting and commanded great performances.
- Miriam Makeba (4 March 1932 – 9 November 2008) was a South African singer and civil rights activist and was married to Hugh Masekela.
- PJ Powers was banned from radio and TV in 1988 by the apartheid government for her performance at a charity concert for war orphans in Zimbabwe, along with Miriam Makeba and Harry Belafonte.
- Trevor Noah is a South African comedian, television and radio host and actor.
- Marc Lottering is a stand-up comedian from Cape Town, and grew up in the Retreat townships of the Cape Flats. His first show was titled After the beep in 1997.
- Barry Hilton is a well-known stand-up comedian and has done shows all over the country.
- Leon Schuster is a filmmaker, comedian, actor, presenter and singer.
- Casper De Vries gained a significant following among the Afrikaner population as well as Afrikaners living abroad.
- Alan Committie has performed on stage, television, radio and the Internet. He was awarded the Golden Horn Award for Best Supporting Actor in a TV Comedy.
- Francios Pienaar is a retired South African rugby union player. He played flanker for South Africa from 1993 until 1996, winning 29 international caps, all of them as captain.
- Jonty Rhodes was a Test and One Day International cricketer who played for the South African cricket team between 1992 and 2003.
- Zola Pieterse, née Zola Budd is a middle-distance and long-distance runner. She competed at the 1984 Olympic Games for Great Britain and the 1992 Olympic Games for South Africa, both times in the 3000 metres.
- Joost van der Westhuizen is a former rugby union player who played as a scrum-half for the national team.
- Chester Williams is a former South African rugby union rugby player. He played as a winger for the Springboks from 1993 to 2000. Williams also played rugby for the Western Province in the Currie Cup. He was part of the team that won the 1995 World Cup at Ellis Park Stadium.
- Caster Semenya will represent South Africa at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
- Penny Heyns is a swimmer, who is best known for being the only woman in the history of the Olympic Games to have won both the 100m and 200m breaststroke events at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.
- Jakes Matlala (1 August 1962 – 7 December 2013) or “Baby Jake” was voted number 72 in the 100 Greatest South Africans poll organized by SABC in 2004.
- Ryk Neethling won an Olympic gold medal in swimming for the 4×100m freestyle relay at the 2004 Summer Olympics.
- Gary Player is a retired South African professional golfer, widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of golf.
- Marks Maponyane is a retired South African football player. He is the all-time top goalscorer for Kaizer Chiefs and captained Orlando Pirates as well.
- Ernie Els is known as “The Big Easy” due to his imposing physical stature along with his fluid golf swing.
- Joel Stransky is a South African rugby player, most notable for scoring all of South Africa’s points, including the famous dramatic winning drop goal, against New Zealand in the 1995 Rugby World Cup final.
- Lucas Radebe is a South African footballer who played primarily as a centre-back.
- Riaan Cruywagen is a famous television personality who was a news reader and voice over artist and has been associated with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) since its first television broadcasts in 1975.
- Charlize Theron is an Oscar-winning South African and American actress.
- Basetsana Kumalo is a South African television personality, beauty pageant titleholder, businesswoman, and philanthropist.
- Terry Pheto is an actress best known for her leading role as Miriam in the 2005 Oscar-winning feature film Tsotsi.
- John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) , known by his pen name J. R. R. Tolkien, was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor who is best known as the author of the classic high-fantasy The Hobbit. Most people don’t know that Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein.
- Kevin Carter, Greg Marinovich, Ken Oosterbroek and Joao Silva was part of the Bang-Bang Club which was a group of photographers and photojournalists who were active within the townships of South Africa between 1990 and 1994.
- Leleti Khumalo is an actress known for her leading role in the movie and stage play Sarafina, and for her roles in other films such as Hotel Rwanda, Yesterday and Invictus.
- Alice Krige is a South African actress and producer. Her first feature film role was in Chariots of Fire as the Gilbert and Sullivan singer, Sybil Gordon.
- Athol Fugard is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director who writes in English. He is the writer of Sizwe Bantsi is Dead.
- Derek Watts has been an anchor and presenter on Carte Blanche since the programme’s inception in 1988. He has been a journalist for more than 25 years, presenting on South African television since 1985.
- Herman Charles Bosman (3 February 1905 –14 October 1951 ) is widely regarded as South Africa’s greatest short-story writer. He studied the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain and developed a style emphasizing the use of satire.
- Dalene Matthee (13 October 1938 – 20 February 2005) Mathee was a South African author best known for her four Forest Novels, written in and around the Knysna Forest.
- Alan Stewart Paton (11 January 1903 – 12 April 1988) was a South African author and anti-apartheid activist. His book Cry the Beloved Country was first published in 1948.
- Jonathan Shapiro is a cartoonist whose work appears in numerous South African publications and has been exhibited internationally on many occasions.
- Neil Blomkamp is a South African-Canadian film director, film producer, screenwriter, and animator.
- Alf Khumalo (5 September 1930 – 21 October 2012) was a South African documentary photographer and photojournalist. He was among the photographers who captured the Sharpeville massacre on 21 March 1960.
- Solomon Kerzner is a South African accountant and business magnate. In 1979 Kerzner developed Sun City, the most ambitious resort project in Africa. Over a period of ten years, he built four hotels, a man-made lake, two Gary Player-designed championship golf courses and entertainment center.
- Mark Shuttleworth is a South African entrepreneur and space tourist who became the first citizen of an independent African country to travel to space.
- Patrice Motsepe is the founder and executive chairman of African Rainbow Minerals, which has interests in gold, ferrous metals, base metals, and platinum.
- Natalie du Toit is a South African swimmer. She is best known for the gold medals she won at the 2004 Paralympic Games as well as the Commonwealth Games.
- Dr Christiaan Barnard (8 November 1922 – 2 September 2001) was a South African cardiac surgeon who performed the world’s first successful human-to-human heart transplant.
- Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje (9 October 1876 – 19 June 1932) was a founding member and first General Secretary of the South African Native National Congress, which later became the ANC.
- Hendrik Egnatius Botha, (27 February 1958) commonly known as Naas Botha, is a Northern Transvaal and Springboks former Rugby union player. He was voted Rugby Player of the Year in 1979, 1981, 1985 and 1987.
- Sarah Baartman (1789 – 29 December 1815) Baartman was the most well known of at least two Khoikhoi women who, due to their large buttocks, were exhibited as freak-show attractions in 19th-century Europe under the name Hottentot Venus.
- Nkosi Johnson (4 February 1989 – 1 June 2001) was a South African child with HIV/AIDS, who made a powerful impact on the public’s perceptions of the pandemic and its effects before his death at the age of 12.
- Elon Reeve Musk is the founder, CEO and CTO of SpaceX; co-founder, CEO and product architect of Tesla Motors. His net worth: 12.3 billion USD.
- Cynthia Tshaka is a leading television personality in South Africa, Cynthia has worked on nearly all major productions of SABC Sport and currently hosts a talk show called Women in Sports.
- Christiaan Frederick Beyers Naudé (10 May 1915 – 7 September 2004) was a South African cleric, theologian and the leading Afrikaner anti-apartheid activist. He was known simply as Beyers Naudé, or more colloquially, Oom Bey.
- Hector Pieterson (1964 – 16 June 1976) became the subject of an iconic image of the 1976 Soweto uprising in South Africa when a news photograph by Sam Nzima of the dying Hector being carried by another student, while his sister ran next to them, was published around the world.
Credited source: Wikipedia
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