South Africa joined in the Americans’ black history month celebrations by re-membering and reflecting on the life of Abram Onkgopotse Tiro, a student activist and black consciousness revolutionary who died on 1 February 1974. I host the “lit review desk” on the MA’AT Reggae Show every Saturday on Temaneng Community radio station in Kimberley, South Africa. Two Saturdays ago, the plan for the show was to interview author, journalist and nephew of Tiro, Gaongalelwe Tiro, who had written his uncle’s biography Parcel of death – a biography of Abram Onkgopotse Tiro in 2019. Gaongalelwe was eager to remind South Africa that there were countless black consciousness student activists who lost their lives in the struggle – everyone knows Steve Bantu Biko but there are countless, nameless, un-re-membered fallen heroes. When I got to the studio I realised I’d forgotten my phone at home, which meant I wouldn’t be able to get Gaongalelwe on the line and I panicked. I had prepared questions to lead the discussion but now I ended up improvising on air, commenting on highlights from the biography, reflecting on how the loss of this famous revolutionary was so closely linked to my own family’s loss in the struggle, albeit of unknown activists and reflecting on how the story of Ongopetse reminds many of us South Africans of the gaping wounds in our lives…

Onkgopotse Tiro was born in 1947 in Dinokana, South Africa, was raised by his mother and grandmother and died in 1974 in Botswana. He obtained his degree at the University of Limpopo where he was elected president of the Student Representative Council (SRC). In 1972, he delivered a speech at a graduation ceremony that criticised the Bantu Education system and the university’s administration which oppressed black students. At the time, his speech shook the entire country and protests erupted in other universities; shortly thereafter, in 1976, students were killed during the Soweto June 16 uprising. Tiro was expelled from the university and banned from the country. He joined the liberation movement in exile in neighbouring Botswana, where he was killed by a letter bomb. Tiro’s death is representative of the cruelty of the apartheid system in South Africa. Tiro’s life not only reminds us of the history of violence that can be traced back to 1652 when Jan Van Riebeeck stepped out of his boat and invaded the South African land; it evokes the memory of generations of freedom fighters who disappeared and remain un-buried and un-celebrated.