StePHen Biko

"Steven Biko sat naked in a prison cell and waited for nineteen days. When his captors were ready to interrogate him, they chained him in a chair for two days. Freed briefly, he somehow scuffled with the police and probably suffered severe head injuries. Biko's speech was incoherent and his breathing shallow when he was returned to his cell, and he lapsed into a coma that the police shrugged off as a feigned illness. He could not eat, but that was interpreted as a hunger strike, and prison doctors repeatedly failed to diagnose his brain damage. Finally Biko was put naked into the back of a Land- Rover and driven 800 miles from Port Elizabeth to Pretoria, allegedly for medical treatment. But the next day, the 30-year-old leader of South Africa's 'black consciousness' movement dies alone on the floor of his cell.” -Newsweek Magazine Stephen Biko

An international outcry followed the Soweto Massacre, and many nations boycotted South Africa. The United States did not boycott, and many saw this as U.S. agreement with the policies of Apartheid. The government was responsible for the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, as well as the imprisonment, and death, of Steven Biko, whose death is still denied by the government. It was reported as a suicide following a voluntary fast, although officers who worked in the jail have since admitted to beating Biko to the point of neurological damage.