We salute one of South Africa's great activists, academic, poet and writer, Dennis Vincent Brutus (28 November 1924 - 26 December 2009). He was a political activist who participated in many anti-apartheid campaigns, especially those concerned with sport and the unfairness in the selection of athletes. Brutus was banned from attending any social and political meetings by the South African government, who also made it illegal for him to publish his writings. In 1959 he helped to form the South African Sports Association where he was the Honorary Secretary and tried to lobby the all- white sports organisations to make changes against the discriminatory rules by which these organisations were governed. Later, as President of the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC), he persuaded Olympic committees from various other countries to vote for the suspension of South Africa from the Olympic Games in 1964 and 1968. He joined the Anti-Coloured Affairs Department (Anti-CAD) organisation which was a group that organised against the Coloured Affairs Department, which had been formed by the government to separate the Blacks from the Coloureds. He was arrested in 1960, and convicted to 18 months imprisonment for not adhering to his banning conditions. He "jumped bail" and fled to Mozambique. Brutus was arrested and on trying to escape from the police he was shot in the back. On recovery, he was sentenced to 16 months on Robben Island, of which five were spent in solitary confinement.  

Links:
Somehow we survive ...
Sport: Threat to the security of the state
For the prisoners in South Africa (a poem) 
For Chief: a tribute to Albert John Luthuli
Robben Island
Boycott apartheid sport
The guerillas
Lee Evans - a champion among men
Minutes of the 5th Conference of National Anti-CAD Movement