South African activist Steve Biko died from injuries suffered while in police custody; he subsequently became an international martyr for South African Black nationalism.
After being expelled from high school for political activism, Biko enrolled in and graduated (1966) from St. Francis College, a liberal boarding school in Natal, and then entered the University of Natal Medical School.
There he became involved in the multiracial National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), a moderate organization that had long espoused the rights of Blacks.
He soon grew disenchanted with NUSAS, believing that, instead of simply allowing Blacks to participate in white South African society, the society itself needed to be restructured around the culture of the Black majority.
In 1968 he cofounded the all-Black South African Students’ Organization (SASO), and he became its first president the following year.
