Ruth First - Biography

Ruth First (May 4, 1925 – August 17, 1982) was a white South African anti-apartheid activist and scholar born in Johannesburg, South Africa. She was killed by a parcel bomb addressed specifically to her in Mozambique, where she worked in exile from South Africa.

Family and Education

Ruth First's parents, Julius First and Matilda Levetan, immigrated to South Africa from Latvia as Jewish immigrants in 1906 and became founder members of the South African Communist Party (SACP). Ruth First was born in 1925 and brought up in Johannesburg. Like her parents, she joined the SACP in 1921, which was allied with the African National Congress in its struggle to overthrow the South African government.

She attended Jeppe High School for Girls. The first person in her family to attend University, she received her Bachelor's degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1946. While in University she found that "on a South African campus,the student issues that matter are national issues" With this political outlook as a student at Witwatersrand, she was involved in the founding of the Federation of Progressive Students, also known as the Progressive Students League. Nelson Mandela, future President of South Africa and Eduardo Mondlane the first leader of the Mozambique freedom movement FRELIMO were among her fellow students.

Once graduated from university, Ruth worked as a research assistant for the Social Welfare Division of the Johannesburg City Council. In 1946, Ruth's political position in the communist party boosted significantly after a series of mine strikes in 1946 where top members of the Communist Party were arrested. First then became the editor-in-chief of the radical newspaper The Guardian, which was subsequently banned by the state.

In 1949 she married Joe Slovo, a Jewish South African anti-apartheid activist and communist.

In addition to her work with The Guardian and its successors, in 1955 Ruth First assumed the position of editor of a radical political journal called Fighting Talk. First was not only active in the anti-apartheid movement through her journalism, but also through political action. First and her husband Slovo were founding members of the African National Congress which resisted the South African government. She was also active in the extensive riots of the 1950s.

Treason Trial and Detention

Ruth First was one of the defendants in the Treason Trial of 1956-1961, alongside 156 other leading anti-apartheid activists who were key figures in the Congress Alliance. After the state of emergency, that followed the Sharpesville Massacre in 1960, First was listed and banned. She could not attend meetings, publish, and could not be quoted. In 1963 during the government's crackdown First was imprisoned and held in isolation without charge for 117 days under the South African apartheid government's ninety-day detention laws. She was the first white women to be detained under the ninety-day detention law.

Exile and Assassination

First went into exile in London in March 1964, where she was active in the Anti-Apartheid Movement. She became a Research Fellow at the University of Manchester in 1972. Between 1973-1978 she lectured in development studies at the University of Durham, although she spent periods of secondment at universities in Dar es Salaam and Lourenco Marques (Maputo).

In November 1978 First took up a post as Director of the research training programme at the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo, Mozambique. Here she continued to work for the downfall of the apartheid regime. She was assassinated by order of Craig Williamson, a major in the South African Police, on August 17, 1982, when she opened a letter bomb that had been sent to her university.

Memoir and Other Media Tributes

First's book 117 Days is her account of her 1963 arrest, imprisonment, and interrogations by the South African Police Special Branch. It was first published in 1965. First imprisonment was characterised by extensive solitary confinement and the memoir provides a detailed account of how she endured isolation and sensory deprivation" and withstood "pressure to provide information about her comrades to the Special Branch."

The 1988 movie A World Apart, from a screenplay by her daughter Shawn Slovo and directed by Chris Menges, is Ruth First's film biography. One of her other daughters, Gillian Slovo, is also a writer.

Published Works

See also

• Marion Sparg - white female ANC guerilla sentenced to 25 years in prison for treason
• Today there is a women's residence in Rhodes University in Grahamstown dedicated to her life and achievements.

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External links

• Ruth First Educational Trust provides opportunities for South African postgraduate students to study at Durham University.
• The First pan-African martyr, Mail & Guardian, Adekeye Adebajo, 25th Aug 2010
• Ruth First Jeppe High School for Girls Memorial Trust was set up in July 2010 and will award scholarships for full tuition at Jeppe High School for Girls for the duration of secondary school education. It is aimed at girls in Grade 7 that show characteristics of leadership, courage, determination and the ability to influence their community positively.