Govan Mbeki was born in Transkei (Eastern Cape), joined the Africa
National Congress (ANC) in 1935, becoming its national chairman in 1956 and
later secretary of its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation).
He joined the South African Communist Party (SACP) in 1961. Like many other
activists, Mbeki attended mission schools and studied at the University of Fort
Hare, completing a degree in politics and psychology and teaching diploma in
1936. His career as a teacher was, however, short-lived. He got sacked because
of his political and trade union activities. In 1938 he moved back to Transkei
to devote himself to local politics and writing. In 1943 Mbeki helped draw up a
document called African Claims which formed the basis of the freedom charter of
1955.

In 1954 he joined New Age, a liberation newspaper thatreflected the
conditions black people lived in as well as their aspirations and demands. In
November 1962 JB Vorster, then Minister of Justice, banned the newspaper. When
the editorial staff launched a new paper, Spark, Vorster banned not only
the paper but also its editors and writers, prohibiting them from having
anything to do with its creation, printing, or distribution. The result: a cat
and mouse game in which papers kept changing their names and the government kept
banning them.

Govan Mbeki was arrested in 1963 along with other member of the ANC when police
raided a farm in Rivonia, a suburb of Johannesburg. At what is known as the
Rivonia trial he was charged with treason and conspiring to overthrow the
government, and sentenced to life imprisonment (along with Nelson Mandela,
Walter Sisulu, Elias Motsoaledi, Ahmed Kathrada, Denis Goldberg,