did Biko know that he was predicting his own imminent fate.
As a revolutionary eradicating state evil, Biko died a very cold and cruel death on September 12, 1977. Du Toit and Maluleke (2008), in The Legacy of Stephen Bantu Biko: Theological Challenges, describes it this way: “The white policemen, in whose custody Steve was during his last days, were vicious and cruel—he was battered, kept isolated and for more than three weeks. In that state, he was thrown onto the cold floor of a Land Rover and driven for eleven hours, only to be dumped and left for several hours on a cell floor in Pretoria” (p. 61).
Bishop Tutu gives a chilling account as well in The Steve Biko Memorial Lecture: 2000–2008:
They tortured and beat Steve up in jail and heartlessly killed him. You will recall that he was driven, comatose, from Port Elizabeth, naked in the back of a Land Rover all the way to Pretoria, where he was shackled to a grate and left to expire, sitting in his urine. He was left to die a death that Mr. Jimmy Kruger later said had left him cold. (As cited in Steve Biko Foundation 2009, p. 94)
So interesting that like Jesus was executed by Rome for teaching a new way of life and advocating for the oppressed, Biko would be executed by the state for promoting a new way of thinking and believing in God amongst oppressed blacks in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Though they killed the man, they couldn’t kill the idea, not realizing it truly transcended time and space, literally like trying to shoot and kill a ghost. He embodied the Christian message, in thought and life, becoming “a way of life” in helping to liberate blacks and whites from the darkness and evil pervasive in a colonial Christianity that promoted and helped establish a wicked and demonic apartheid state system. I agree with Kortright Davis (1983), who writes in Foretastes of Emancipation in Third World Religion, “If Steve Biko’s name goes down in Black history as the Apostle of Black Consciousness, then there should be little quarrel with such an epithet—for it can truly be said that he paid the supreme price of proclaiming the Gospel of Black Consciousness even unto death” (p. 13).
Methodology
The research method used is qualitative, descriptive, and analytical; and the bulk of the data for the study was sourced from libraries in the Washington, DC, area, such as the Library of Congress and the Howard University Library System, which connects to universities and colleges within the DC Consortium of Universities, as well as universities and documentation centers in South Africa, such as the Steve Biko Foundation. These methods were selected because the study surrounds the significant historical events of apartheid, anti-apartheid resistance, and Biko’s life and death from 1946 to 1977, which requires reviewing and analyzing literature and life accounts from that time span.
The study uses two types of sources—primary and secondary sources. Primary sources consist mainly of speeches, letters, and interviews given by Biko and articles that he wrote, many of which are collected in his book I Write What I Like. Similar materials by Biko are also found in the collections of Gail Gerhart housed at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and the Steve Biko Foundation.
Secondary sources for this study consist of texts, journal articles, biographies, and essays written by scholars and persons who were related to and closely associated with Biko in his fight against apartheid, as well as materials such as films, videos, pamphlets, and lectures. Examples of these secondary texts include Donald Woods’s (1978) Biko, Basil Moore’s (1973) Black Theology, Mamphela Ramphele’s (2013) A Passion for Freedom, Barney Pityana’s (1991) Bounds of Possibility, Daniel Magaziner’s (2010) The Law and the Prophets: Black Consciousness in South Africa, James Cone’s (1969) Black Theology and Black Power, Dwight Hopkins’s (1989) Black Theology USA and South Africa: Politics, Culture, and Liberation.
Library research was conducted at the Library of Congress, including their online databases, and the Howard University Library System and DC area consortium. Also, during a short visit to South Africa in December 2017, I was able to visit and contact universities in South Africa for other resources and materials to assist with the research.
This study employs a close reading of primary sources and a content analysis approach in order to examine, describe, and analyze significant aspects of Biko’s thought and practice of black consciousness with a specific focus on his brand of black theology and critique of dominant white Christianity. Secondary sources are drawn upon for additional scholarly perspectives and analyses as well as for biographical and other contextual information, descriptions, and analyses and a timeline of major events leading up to his early death.
Organization of the Study
Chapter 1 consists of a general introduction, giving an overview of the dissertation and summarizing the problem, the aims and objectives, theoretical framework, definition of terms, literature review, and methodology. Chapter 2 attempts to answer the question “What is Stephen Biko’s Christian background?” This chapter provides a brief biography of Biko’s life, faith, education, and church affiliations, all of which helped shape his radical message of black consciousness. Chapter 3 gives an account of Biko’s gospel message of black consciousness, its origin and development in South Africa, and the Christian social ethics that emerged and evolved. Chapter 4 focuses on his message, his critique of white liberal Christianity, as well as his subsequent mission and charge to create a black student organization and birth the Black Consciousness Movement.
Chapter 5 explores Biko’s message to blacks who bought into the multiracial philosophy of white liberals and their argument against black consciousness as separatist, racist, and promoter of segregation. Chapter 6 analyzes his message to oppressed blacks in helping them to seek a true humanity free of fear, inferiority, and oppression. Chapter 7 focuses on Biko’s message to the white minority government oppressing the black majority through apartheid. Chapter 8 examines Biko’s execution in comparison to Jesus’s and his legacy as well as various movements, efforts, programs, and centers that carry on his work and legacy. Chapter 9 is the conclusion, which provides the aim of the dissertation, a comparative analysis of the theoretical frameworks used, and a summation of all the chapters.
Abbreviations
ANC— African National Congress
AZAPO— Azanian People’s Organization
BC— Black Consciousness
BCM— Black Consciousness Movement
BCP— Black Community Programmes
BPC— Black Peoples Convention
BT— Black Theology
CRC— Coloured Representative Council
DRC— Dutch Reformed Churches
EFF— Economic Freedom Fighters
Nats— National Party
NP— National Party
NUSAS— National Union of South African Students
PAC— Pan Africanist Congress
POQO— Armed wing of the Pan Africanist Congress
SASO— South African Students’ Organization
SRC— Student Representative Council
UCM— University Christian Movement
UDF— United Democratic Front
UNNE— University of Natal Non-European
UP— United Party
Chapter 2
Becoming Steve Biko
This chapter examines Biko’s early childhood up through his young adult years to examine influences that helped shape his Christian experience. This examination will allow an opportunity to analyze the significance of what he understood the Christian message to be, how he incorporated it into the Black Consciousness Movement’s message, and how he embodied it as a leader.
Stephen “Bantu” Biko was “born on December 18, 1946, at his grandmother’s home in Tarkastad,” located in the Eastern Cape (Hill 2015, p. xxi). Biko was affectionately