Soweto is a township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for South Western Townships. Formerly a separate municipality, it is now incorporated in the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, and one of the suburbs of Johannesburg.
The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, commonly known as Wits University or Wits, is a multi-campus public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg, South Africa. The university has its roots in the mining industry, as do Johannesburg and the Witwatersrand in general. Founded in 1896 as the South African School of Mines in Kimberley, it is the third oldest South African university in continuous operation.
Mamphela Aletta Ramphele is a South African politician, anti-apartheid activist, medical doctor and businesswoman. She was a partner of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, with whom she had two children. She is a former vice-chancellor at the University of Cape Town and a former managing director at the World Bank. Ramphele founded political party Agang South Africa in February 2013 but withdrew from politics in July 2014. Since 2018, she has been the co-president of the Club of Rome
Rhodes University is a public research university located in Makhanda (Grahamstown) in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. It is one of four universities in the province.
Asif Joardar, is a professor of political studies and former head of the Department of Political Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, from 1987 to 2013. He was educated at the progressive independent Dartington Hall School in England and completed a BA degree in politics and government at the University of Kent in 1980, followed by an MSc at the London School of Economics (1981) and a PhD in sociology at Kent, (1986). He was formerly a visiting research fellow in the Department of Political Science at the New School for Social Research in New York City, adjunct professor in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University and a visiting research fellow in the School of Politics, Queen's University Belfast.
David Webster was a South African academic and anti-apartheid activist. He worked as an anthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he was a senior lecturer at the time of his assassination.
Adam Mahomed Habib is a South African academic administrator serving as Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London since 1 January 2021. He served as Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg, South Africa, between 1 June 2013, when the term of his predecessor Loyiso Nongxa ended, and 1 January 2021. He is also a former deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Johannesburg.
Amina Cachalia, OLB was a South African anti-Apartheid activist, women's rights activist, and politician. She was a longtime friend and ally of former President Nelson Mandela. Her late husband was political activist Yusuf Cachalia.
Westpark Cemetery is a large cemetery in Johannesburg, South Africa, and is the resting place of some of the country's well-known citizens. It is a non-denomination designated burial ground, and thus has Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Chinese burial areas. The Jewish section contains a Holocaust Memorial, erected in 1959.
Lucien van der Walt is a South African writer, professor of Sociology and labour educator. His research engages the anarchist/syndicalist tradition of Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin; trade unionism and working class history, particularly in southern Africa; and neoliberal state restructuring. He currently teaches and researches at Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, and previously worked at the University of the Witwatersrand. His 2007 PhD on anarchism and syndicalism in South Africa in the early 1900s won both the international prize for the best PhD dissertation from the Labor History journal, and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa prize for best African PhD thesis.
Peter Vale is a senior research fellow at the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and the Nelson Mandela Professor of Politics Emeritus at Rhodes University, South Africa. He is also an honorary professor at the Africa Earth Observatory Network (AEON) of which he was a founding member. Notably, Vale was the founding director of the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS) and acting vice-rector for academic affairs and deputy vice-chancellor of the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. He has also received an honoury doctorate in the Humanities from the University of the Free State, South Africa.
Regina Gelana Twala (1908–1968) was a feminist activist, writer, teacher, researcher, evangelist, and liberation leader in South Africa and eSwatini.
Vella Pillay was a South African international economist and a founding member of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement. He was a member of the South African Communist Party and coordinated the party's overseas activities from London when it was banned by the South African government. As a chairman of the editorial committee of Anti-Apartheid News, he wrote extensively on the South African economy under the apartheid regime.
Ismail Jacobus Mohamed was a South African activist and mathematician. He represented the African National Congress (ANC) in the National Assembly from 1994 to 2009.
Sarah Nuttall is a South African academic and cultural critic who is professor of literary and cultural studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. She was director of the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research from 2013 to 2022. She has published widely about post-apartheid South Africa, including on topics in literary theory, cultural theory, urban theory, and aesthetics.
William Rodger “Roger” Jardine is a South African business executive, former government official and leader of the political party Change Starts Now.
